Baillie Gifford has dropped out of FE Fundinfo’s top ten fund houses, after a number of its funds' ratings were dropped.
The fund house saw the number of its '5-crown' rated funds fall from 9 to 4 this year, according to FE Fundinfo’s rebalancing exercise.
Charles Younes, research manager at FE Investments, said Baillie Gifford had gained a lot of attention in recent months, having gone through a period of underperformance after a highly successful 2020.
“But once again, this is largely due to market shifts, rather than any fundamental changes within management style, or the holdings they typically own as a group,” he said, adding that he remained confident in the firm’s approach.
“We haven’t seen any evidence of poor choices in their stock picking so are anticipating stronger performance in the next Crown rebalance in July.”
Abrdn took the top spot with 17 5-crown rated funds, followed by Blackrock and Liontrust with 16 and 12 respectively.
The firm with the highest share of highly rated funds was Baring at 30 per cent.
Top ten rated fund houses
Group | Number of funds | Number of 5-crown funds | Percentage of 5-crown funds |
Abrdn | 142 | 17 | 12% |
Blackrock | 103 | 16 | 16% |
Liontrust | 55 | 12 | 22% |
GAM | 42 | 10 | 24% |
PIMCO | 40 | 9 | 23% |
Fidelity | 92 | 9 | 11% |
Baring | 27 | 8 | 30% |
Goldman Sachs | 44 | 8 | 19% |
JP Morgan | 60 | 8 | 14% |
Valu-Trac | 76 | 8 | 10% |
Source: FE Fundinfo
Meanwhile, seven funds across a broad spectrum of strategies have been given the 5-crown rating in the newest rebalancing.
These funds are:
- EFG Asset Management’s New Capital Global Balanced fund
- Legal & General’s L&G Future World Sustainable Opportunities
- Ninety One’s UK Sustainable Equity fund
- Octopus Investments’ FP Octopus UK Multi Cap Income fund
- Omnis Investments’ Asia Pacific ex-Japan Equity fund
- PGIM Funds’ European Corporate ESG Bond fund
- S&W Samphire fund, managed by Authorised Corporate Director (ACD) S&W Fund Administration
Younes said there had been a number of different pressures affecting the markets throughout the second half of last year, which will run into 2022.
“Therefore, it’s not surprising that a broad range of funds and strategies, not concentrated in any one area, have gained a 5-crown rating during this rebalance.”
Some 132 funds lost their top rating during the reshuffle, including AXA Investment Managers’ World Funds Asian Short Duration Bonds fund, Ninety One’s Global Macro Allocated fund, PIMCO’s GIS Dynamic Bond fund and S&W Fund Administration’s S&W Daisybelle fund.
The IA’s infrastructure sector saw the highest percentage of funds gaining a 5-crown rating, with nine funds being promoted, representing 50 per cent of its total funds.
The IA Financials and Financial Innovation sector was second, seeing four of its 11 funds awarded the top rating.
sally.hickey@ft.com
