Terry Smith, Anthony Srom and Richard Watts have joined FE Fundinfo’s alpha manager hall of fame, while 10 managers were booted from the list, including former Invesco manager Mark Barnett.
Fundsmith Equity manager, Smith (pictured), Fidelity Asia Pacific Opportunities manager, Srom, and manager of the Jupiter UK Mid Cap fund, Watts, were all awarded a place in the hall of fame “in a year where extreme volatility has tested the markets and challenged returns”.
FE’s hall of fame recognises managers who have been ‘alpha-rated’ over a period of seven years. To gain an alpha rating, fund managers are ranked according to their track records since 2000, with extra weighting applied to those with longer track records to highlight the benefits of their experience in delivering strong performance in a range of market conditions.
The rating is based on three components including risk-adjusted alpha, consistency of outperformance versus their benchmark and outperformance in both up and down markets. The list now has 51 managers in total.
The £24bn Fundsmith Equity fund has returned 454.2% since its inception, with returns of 136.7% over five years, above the IA Global average of 91.7%, according to Trustnet, while the £1.2bn Fidelity Asia Pacific Opportunities fund returned 151.4% over five years, compared to the IA Asia Pacific ex Japan average of 95.3%. Watts’ £3.5bn Jupiter UK Mid Cap fund returned 81.3% over five years, almost double the IA UK All Companies average of 41.8%.
FE Fundinfo also recognised 10 fund managers who have consistently kept their place in the hall of fame throughout the last seven years, even during the uncertainty of the pandemic.
Martin Lau at First Sentier Investors, Harry Nimmo at Standard Life Aberdeen, Mark Slater at Slater Investments, Richard Woolnough at M&G, Giles Hargreave at Marlborough Fund Managers, Leigh Himsworth at Fidelity, John Chatfeild-Roberts and Daniel Nickols at Jupiter, David Dudding at Columbia Threadneedle and Richard Pease at Crux Asset Management have all had unbroken positions in the hall of fame for seven years.
‘Demonstrated value time and again’
FE Fundinfo research manager Charles Younes said that during the pandemic, “the very best active fund managers have demonstrated their value time and again”, especially during the crash in February and March last year “by navigating the worst of the downside and then secondly by spotting the opportunities in the recovery”.
Younes added that the alpha managers have “mostly had long careers and have already experienced the events we saw in the last 12 months before”.
The hall of fame waved goodbye to 10 active fund managers due to the “unprecedented market conditions”. Among them is Mark Barnett who left Invesco by “mutual agreement” last May after his funds suffered a run of underperformance but resurfaced this month at Tellworth Investments.
Barry Norris, Henry Dixon, Andrew Green, Bryan Agbabian, Robert Smith, Sean Ashfield, Mark Martin, Alex Savvides and Mary McBain also fl off the list.
