BT enters war of words over ratings

BT Funds Management (BTFM) chief investment officer Gary Symons has hit out angrily at ratings house InvestorWeb after the group downgraded all of BTFM’s international funds in its latest reassessment of the beleaguered fund manager.

Symons described InvestorWeb as contemptuous and unprofessional following the release of what was a scathing report into BT’s international capabilities under a revamped team structure instigated by Symons.

The ratings agency dropped BT’s American Growth, International and TIME funds from hold to sell, and the group’s European Growth and Pacific Basin funds from buy to hold, after concluding that BT’s international equities reporting structures had become disjointed and lacked structure.

The negative rating in international capabilities is the second in two weeks after Assirt also downgraded BTFM in that sector.

The strongly worded InvestorWeb report stated the changes to BT’s international equity team, built around the appointment of Paul Durham to head up the international equities division, were prompted by a cynical attempt to inject much needed market confidence into BT, and had in fact created an “overly bureaucratic team structure”.

“InvestorWeb believes the appointment [of Durham] was done to sure [sic] up the market with a known BT face,” says the ratings house in its report.

InvestorWeb was much more up beat about BT’s Australian equities capabilities, upgrading the manager’s Australian share funds from a sell to a hold after applauding a range of changes made under new head of Australian equities Marcus Fanning.

But the positive Australian equities result was little consolation for Symons, who was stated he was livid at not having been personally contacted by InvestorWeb as part of the review.

InvestorWeb chose instead to base its review around discussions with Durham and international equities portfolio manager David Mills.

“I contest [the report] absolutely, and quite frankly I see it as unprofessional given that they did not even come and talk to me,” he says.

“You get to know when people come to review you who are serious about it and do a thorough and professional job and I just look at this and think it is contemptuous.”

InvestorWeb senior investment analyst David Smythe dismissed the suggestions the group had acted unprofessionally, saying the research house was very comfortable with it’s rating of BT and that it had applied the same process in its review of BT as it does with all other managers.