Scottish Widows’ reign at the top of Chelsea Financial Services’ RedZone list of providers with the most underperforming funds has finally ended, after UBS Global Asset Management joined the provider as joint recipient of the dubious honour.
Both groups had six funds highlighted as consistent underperformers in the RedZone report, which has been seen exclusively by Investment Adviser. Each fund in the list has produced third or fourth quartile returns in each of the past three years, according to Chelsea’s calculations.
Chelsea said with the exception of March 2012, when Scottish Widows and its asset management unit Scottish Widows Investment Partnership were the third-worst provider, the firm topped the RedZone report since March 2009.
The report said UBS’s UK Smaller Companies fund topped its DropZone list, which highlights the funds that underperformed their sector averages by the largest amount in the cumulative three-year period to December 31 2012.
Swip said it did “not take surveys of this nature lightly” and noted the funds highlighted in the RedZone accounted for less than a 2 per cent of Swip’s total funds under management. UBS was unavailable for comment.
