According to research company QuotedData, top of the pile have been private equity trusts. An example given is HgCapital Trust, which returned 1301% between 1994 and 2014, or 13 times any initial investment made at the start of the period.
More broadly, European equities trusts have been the big winners with several delivering well over 1000% returns including JPMorgan European Smaller Companies, Baring Emerging Europe and Fidelity European Values.
On the other side of things Japan focused trusts have been a very bad bet, unsurprisingly given the travails the country has faced over this timeframe. The table produced by QuoteData is propped up by several trusts which target Japan including Fidelity Japanese Values which delivered a 5% loss over the 20 years and JPMorgan Japan Smaller Companies which managed just a 5% gain.
“I reckon, within the investment companies sector, the worst place to be invested over the past twenty years has been Japan, followed, surprisingly perhaps given people’s perception of the region as an economic powerhouse over the past couple of decades, by Asia,” said research director James Carthew.
“At the other end of the scale, the winner is private equity fund, Hg Capital which would have made you 13x your money over the past twenty years. I expected that Hg would come out fairly close to the top, it has built up an enviable track record by sticking to niches that it knows well and not getting caught out in the tech boom or credit crisis – the other private equity fund that made it into the top ten was Graphite Enterprise – which did very well out of the tech boom. European funds come out quite highly in the list,” he added.
