S&P removes 'on hold' from two DWS funds
S&P Fund Services has assigned its four-star rating to the DWS Strategic Value Fund and an enhanced version of the fund that offers investors daily liquidity.
The funds were placed 'on hold' in December 2008 after the fund's investment adviser, Topiary Fund Management, announced it would close the majority of its funds and downsize its investment team. The responsible entity, Deutsche Asset Management (Australia), then temporarily suspended applications and redemptions.
Management of the fund's underlying assets was then delegated to K2 Advisors, a global fund-of-hedge-funds manager. K2 has since reviewed the underlying managers inherited from the previous manager and realigned the portfolio with its own investment process and risk-management approach, S&P said.
“S&P has a high regard for K2's clearly articulated investment process and its well-resourced team of investment professionals,” said S&P Fund Services analyst Tom Mills.
“In S&P's view, a key strength of K2's investment capability is the rigour of its due diligence and risk-management processes, which are continually applied to prospective as well as incumbent managers,” he said.
The fund’s fee structure, with a lower level of management fee given a higher level of performance fee, provides the manager with an incentive to make consistent returns. S&P said this gave the fund one of the most competitive fee structures in the S&P-rated peer group.
DWS describes the fund as “a multi-manager, multi-strategy fund providing access to a diversified range of global absolute return strategies”.
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