The 10 most expensive funds that weigh in at more than £100m in the UK All-Companies sector each underperformed the FTSE All-Share over the past 12 months, data from wealth manager SCM Direct has found.
The £180m Jupiter UK Dynamic Equities fund, which charges the highest total cost of 2.49%, was down 28.5% over the past 12 months.
It was a similar story for the rest of the ‘most expensive’ strategies identified by SCM. The ‘best’ performer of the bunch was the £195m JP Morgan UK Dynamic fund, which lost 6.9%, compared to the FTSE All-Share’s -3.5%.
Alan Miller, co-founder and CIO of SCM Direct, told Portfolio Adviser: “It is interesting to note how poor the performance of the most expensive IA UK All Companies funds has been over the last 12 months.
“The average return of these 10 funds has been -17.3%, which is nearly [14 percentage points] worse than the FTSE All-Share Index return, while the average total cost of these funds is 1.8%, including performance fees and transaction costs.
“The lesson is that investors should look closely at total costs and think long and hard before falling for the marketing hype of many of the actively managed UK funds, which simply do not stand up to close scrutiny.”
Funds that charge 2% or more have returned 4.9% a year over the last decade on average, while those with total costs of 0.5% or less have returned 5.7%.
Top 10 most expensive IA UK All Companies funds
| Name | Total Cost (Ongoing Cost + Transaction + Perform Fee) (%) | Portfolio Size | Total Ret 1 Yr (Daily) GBP (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTSE All-Share Total Return | N/A | N/A | -3.5 |
| Jupiter UK Dynamic Eq | 2.49 | £179,686,700 | -28.5 |
| Halifax Special Situations | 2.05 | £100,102,186 | -16.3 |
| JPM UK Dynamic | 1.87 | £194,645,478 | -6.9 |
| Scottish Widows UK Growth | 1.84 | £1,673,909,716 | -8.9 |
| Marlborough Multi-Cap Growth | 1.77 | £196,017,423 | -28.5 |
| Halifax UK Growth | 1.73 | £2,908,166,321 | -9.5 |
| HL Multi-Manager UK Growth | 1.68 | £152,286,082 | -14.2 |
| CRUX UK Special Situations | 1.64 | £176,768,749 | -22.1 |
| Quilter Investors UK Eq Gr U2 | 1.62 | £242,557,359 | -21.5 |
| Schroder UK Alpha Plus | 1.56 | £680,337,509 | -16.7 |
Source: SCM Direct
