What the 100 Club winners tell us about the funds market

We ran one and five year performance numbers for funds across 17 fund categories, screening out mandates that are closed to new money or sub £50mn in size or have a manager with a short tenure. 

The full results can be accessed by clicking on the link here. 

But one pattern which emerges is the relatively strong performance of boutique fund houses, with outfits such as Evenlode, which won in the hugely competitive UK Equity fund category, and Orbis Global Balanced fund which won in the Mixed Asset category, while Comgest won the North America equity category. 

And that’s where the dilemma is for fund houses, as there is an increasingly popular view among fund buyers that smaller funds have greater capacity to perform better.

But of course that dents the business models of some fund houses, particularly in the era of consolidation when scale is being pursued. 

And with increased regulatory obligations, scale is become essential for many, at the same time as its becoming harder to implement.

But there is hope for the giants, with Fidelity winning in three of the categories, and the overall group of the year title. 

And that’s the second theme to emerge from this years results, the strength of value funds or other mandates which are thematic in nature.

When the Asset Allocator data team and the external judging panel get together in 2024 to select the winners, being a value fund may not be a headwind, but it’s fair to assume that boutiques will still be a feature of the winner’s circle next year.