van Eyk rewards well-researched funds

Research house van Eyk, as part of its global fund manager review, has awarded its top ‘A’ rating to three international small cap managers that all have a deep research process.

The Apostle Global Small-Mid Cap Fund, the Blackrock Global Small Cap Fund and the Copper Rock Capital Global Small Cap Fund had in common a strong research process to identify quality listed companies at the smaller end of the market, as well as experienced research teams, said van Eyk head of ratings Matthew Olsen and lead analyst Varun Venkatraman.

van Eyk said the Apostle fund had an edge in terms of on-the-ground coverage of US and European companies due to its 18 investment professionals split in its London and Houston offices, while the Copper Rock fund is led by three highly experienced portfolio managers including well known Wall Street small caps expert Denise Selden.

“These managers combined rigorous bottom-up research with a coherent, risk-aware portfolio construction process. We have conviction that these managers will add value for investors over a three to five year time frame,” Venkatraman said.

Also covered in the sector review were the Lazard Global Small Cap Fund which received a ‘BB’ rating and the Hunter Hall Value Growth Trust which received a ‘B’ rating.

van Eyk also looked favourably on exchange-traded fund (ETF) provider BetaShares, with three currency ETFs, a gold ETF and its financials and resources sector ETFs also being awarded ‘A’ ratings.

The British Pound, Euro and US dollar ETFs benefited from being less complicated than some other types of ETFs and generally tracked the underlying currency closely, as they were backed by direct foreign currency holdings in bank accounts.

They also had a reasonable manager’s fee and the opportunity to earn extra interest, said van Eyk lead investment analyst Nimalan Govender.