Allan Gray continues to reign supreme

Allan Gray’s reign as the leading management company continued in the first quarter of this year.

“This is the sixth quarter in a row that Allan Gray has taken the laurels,” says Ryk de Klerk, director of PlexCrown Fund Ratings. “What makes this feat even more remarkable is the fact that Allan Gray achieved this despite having underperformed the market during the past year.”

According to PlexCrown Fund Ratings, a methodology which entails rating funds in terms of risk-adjusted returns, Allan Gray achieved an overall rating of 4.50 PlexCrowns as it took both Total Domestic and Foreign categories.

Allan Gray’s top spot in the Domestic category was achieved by a joint first position in Domestic Asset Allocation, joint third in Domestic Fixed Interest and joint fourth in Domestic Equity. Its superior ranking in the Foreign category was underscored by its supremacy in Foreign Equity and joint first position in Foreign and Worldwide Flexible. Orbis, Allan Gray’s global asset management partner, achieved the top spot in the Total Offshore Category with a rating of 4.250, with joint first positions in Total Equity and Total Fixed Interest. The company reigned supreme in Global Equity General, Far East Equity and Global Fixed Interest Other Income and third spot in Japan Equity.

Prudential was the runner-up with an overall rating of 3.792 PlexCrowns. Prudential’s second place can be attributed to a strong showing on both the domestic and foreign fronts. The company’s second spot in Total Domestic was as a result of its joint first position in Domestic Equity, third spot in Domestic Real Estate and an above-average rating in Domestic Fixed Interest. Prudential achieved a joint fourth position in Total Foreign as its second place in Foreign Fixed Interest made up for an average position in Foreign Equity.

According to De Klerk, Coronation edged out Nedgroup Investments for third spot overall with an overall rating of 3.583. “The company’s overall rating was underscored by above-average positions in Domestic Equity and Domestic Asset Allocation and a third spot in Foreign Equity,” says De Klerk.

According to Karl Leinberger, Chief Investment Officer of Coronation Fund Managers, the last two years have been very successful for Coronation. “During a time of extraordinary market volatility our portfolios have all performed extremely well,” says Leinberger. “We attribute this, quite simply, to our unwavering commitment to long-term investing. Everything we do ensures that we analyse, debate and ultimately value businesses based on their long-term fundamentals.”

Investec was runner-up in the Total Offshore category with a rating of 3.722. Investec’s rating was boosted by taking the honours in Global Asset Allocation and joint first spots in US Equity, UK Equity and Global Fixed Interest Bond. Ashburton was rated third in the Total Offshore category. The investment house took the honours in Japan Equity and Europe Equity, was joint first in US Equity and was in second spot in Global Asset Allocation.

386 Domestic funds were rated at the end of March 2010 compared to 375 funds at the end of December 2010. 73% of the funds ratings were unchanged while 26% of the funds experienced minor rating changes. Four funds experienced major rating changes. Spyglass Flexible Fund received a downgrade from 5 to 2 PlexCrowns. Imalivest Flexible Fund and Metropolitan Gilt Portfolio were both downgraded from 5 to 3 PlexCrowns. Investec Growth Fund A was downgraded from 4 PlexCrowns to 2 PlexCrowns. At the end on March 2010, 138 FSB-approved offshore funds were rated compared to 154 at the end of December 2009. According to De Klerk, the decrease was as a result of the deregistering of Aviva and Invesco funds.

The best-performing funds over the quarter ended 31 March 2010 were Grindrod Global Property Income Fund and Coronation Financial Fund A with 11.88% and 11.7% respectively The worst-performing fund over this period was Prescient Global Income Feeder Fund A1 with -7.43%. The best-performing fund over the last 12 months was RMB Small/Mid-Cap Fund A with 63.8%. Cadiz Equity Ladder Fund took pole position over three years with 19.39% per annum, while Old Mutual Mining and Resources Fund A took the honours over the five-year period with 26.51% per annum.

Table 1: PlexCrown domestic CIS manager ranking – overall

Table 2: PlexCrown foreign CIS manager ranking (FSB-approved funds) – overall

Table 3: Leading funds per unit trust category (based on risk-adjusted returns)

Table 3: Top management companies’ domestic fund ratings

* 5 = top rating; 1 = lowest rating