Henderson Global Investors has maintained its dominant position in the Investment Adviser 100 Club after racking up the most memberships in 2014’s results.
The Investment Adviser 100 Club is reviewed annually and aims to highlight the best funds and investment trusts available to intermediaries by analysing short- and long-term performance alongside other criteria.
Henderson secured a flurry of memberships in the 2013 results and has proved strongest in 2014, with a total of six fund memberships.
Henley-based Invesco Perpetual was almost as strong, however, with five memberships – in spite of the departure of its star manager, Neil Woodford. Both are also in group categories.
Closely behind were Standard Life Investments (SLI) and JPMorgan Asset Management (JPMAM), both with four fund memberships.
SLI has proved strong in income-focused sectors in particular, while JPMAM has produced solid performance in regional equity categories.
A big change from last year is the decline in dominance of Schroders. The company had 12 member funds in 2013 – including funds it had acquired through its then-recent purchase of Cazenove Capital – up from just one in 2012.
However, the group has secured only three memberships this year, meaning it is not included within categories for best group.
Strong showings were made from Threadneedle Investments, Old Mutual Global Investors and Baillie Gifford, all with three funds.
A change in the way groups are assessed means Baillie Gifford is in contention for the Large Investment Group award at the 100 Club Awards in October, rather than the boutique category for which it was eligible last year.
For the purposes of the 100 Club, a large investment manager is now defined as one with at least £100bn in global assets, including the assets of its parent group.
There are also a raft of new entrants, including the Genesis Emerging Markets Trust, the FP Matterley Undervalued Assets fund and MFM Slater Growth.
A panel of fund selection experts – due to be announced shortly – will decide which is the best fund or group within each category. The winners will be announced at the 100 Club Awards in October.
The 100 Club funds are highlighted in gold in the statistics pages at the back of the magazine (see p35). The 2014 members will be highlighted as of next week.
The 100 Club is a fully RDR-ready tool for intermediaries, as it pits open-ended and closed-ended funds together within categories and highlights the best passive fund providers.
The calculation process is based on funds’ total returns over one and five years relative to the total returns of a broadly relevant benchmark index or sector. The benchmark is chosen so a large group of funds can be reasonably compared with it.
The data source was FE Analytics, and all performance figures quoted are bid-to-bid and rebased in sterling where currencies differed. The performance figures range to May 31 2014.
The full selection criteria is available at ia100.ftadviser.com.
