This year’s Raging Bull awards held in Cape Town on Tuesday were a clear confirmation of how the South African unit trust market is taking on a new character. The accolades were dominated by smaller managers, with boutique house MiPlan emerging as the South African Manager of the year.
This award, which is the most prominent of the night, recognises the asset manager that has delivered the best risk-adjusted performance across its range of funds. Allan Gray has earned this accolade for the past three years, but slipped to fourth in the 2020 rankings.
The recognition for MiPlan is not only significant in that a smaller house has out-performed its larger competitors across its fund range, but because the firm’s approach is not to chase alpha (high returns). All of its funds are managed to achieve a certain objective.
Its MiPlan IP Beta Equity Fund aims to deliver a return only at least equal to the performance of the average local equity fund. Its multi-asset portfolios are targeted at outcomes linked to inflation.
MiPlan is also explicitly focused on achieving these outcomes at low cost. The MiPlan IP Beta Equity Fund has an annual management fee of just 0.45%.
Equally noteworthy was that another boutique firm – Kagiso Asset Management – took home the most fund awards on the night. In total, its funds won in six categories. Investec Asset Management had the second highest tally with four.
The only other repeat winners were Allan Gray, which earned three awards for its bond funds; Truffle, which won twice for the Truffle SCI Income Plus Fund; Long Beach, which took home two awards for its Long Beach Flexible Prescient Fund; and Efficient Select, which was recognised twice for the Select BCI Worldwide Flexible Fund.
The offshore manager of the year award, for the firm with the best risk-adjusted performance from its range of international funds, was presented to Nedgroup Investments. This is the fifth consecutive year that the manager has secured this accolade.
The full list of winners is below.
Raging Bull Manager of the Year Awards
South African manager of the year:
MiPlan
South African manager of the year – second place:
Investec Asset Management
South African manager of the year – second place:
Prescient Investment Management
Offshore manager of the year:
Nedgroup Investments
Raging Bull Awards for risk-adjusted performance over five years
Best South African general equity fund on a risk-adjusted basis:
Fairtree Equity Prescient Fund
Best South African multi-asset equity fund on a risk-adjusted basis:
Best South African multi-asset flexible fund on a risk-adjusted basis:
Long Beach Flexible Prescient Fund
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore global asset allocation fund on a risk-adjusted basis:
Platinum Global Managed Fund
Raging Bull Awards for straight performance over three years
Best South African general equity fund:
Best South African interest-bearing fund:
Best (SA-domiciled) global equity general fund:
Blue Alpha BCI Global Equity Fund
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore global equity fund:
Fundsmith Equity Fund
Certificates for risk-adjusted performance over five years
Best South African multi-asset low equity fund:
Best South African multi-asset medium equity fund:
Best South African multi-asset high equity fund:
Best South African multi-asset income fund:
Best South African interest-bearing short-term fund:
Best South African interest-bearing variable-term fund:
Best South African real estate fund:
Best (SA-domiciled) global equity general fund:
Investec Global Franchise Feeder Fund
Best (SA-domiciled) global real estate fund:
Catalyst Global Real Estate Prescient Feeder Fund
Best (SA-domiciled) global multi-asset low equity fund:
Prudential Global Inflation Plus Feeder Fund
Best (SA-domiciled) global multi-asset high equity fund:
Investec Global Strategic Managed Feeder Fund
Best (SA-domiciled) global multi-asset flexible fund:
Best (SA-domiciled) worldwide multi-asset flexible fund:
Select BCI Worldwide Flexible Fund
Certificates for straight performance over three years
Best South African equity resources fund:
Best South African mid and small cap fund:
Coronation Smaller Companies Fund
Best South African multi-asset low equity fund:
Financial Fitness IP Stable Fund of Funds
Best South African multi-asset medium equity fund:
Best South African multi-asset high equity fund:
Best South African multi-asset flexible fund:
Long Beach Flexible Prescient Fund
Best South African multi-asset income fund:
Sasfin BCI Flexible Income Fund
Best South African interest-bearing short-term fund:
Best South African interest-bearing variable-term fund:
Best South African real estate fund:
True North IP Enhanced Property Fund
Best (SA-domiciled) global multi-asset flexible fund:
Northstar SCI Global Flexible Fund
Best (SA-domiciled) worldwide multi-asset flexible fund:
Select BCI Worldwide Flexible Fund
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore Europe equity general fund:
Templeton Eastern European Fund
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore United States equity general fund:
Franklin US Opportunities Fund
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore Far East equity general fund:
Templeton China Fund
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore global real estate general fund:
Schroder International Selection Fund – Global Cities Real Estate
Best (FSCA-approved) offshore global fixed-interest bond fund:
Allan Gray Africa ex-SA Bond Fund
COMMENTS 11
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Hopefully all big fund companies will reduce their management fees with immediate effect. The have no right to charge a premium anymore…
Vote 16
The latest research on local unit trust fees show that fees, on average, in South Africa are around the international average. At the same time in just about everything else established brand names charge premium prices and are respected. Why should investment management be any different? At the same no investor has to pay premium fees if they don’t want to – there is more than enough competition – and can just change to lower cost provider / fund. As a matter of interest just name one provider with unrealistically high fees so I can see who you are referring to?
Vote 8
Industry awards and their significance to investors when making investment decisions aside, I do agree that local fees are aligned with international standards. I do however have a problem with the benchmarks that funds target to receive bonuses. I am referring to needlessly complex benchmarks that use percentages of indexes which few clients will be able to truly understand or laughably low benchmarks that make it almost a guarantee that the fund will receive the bonus. What is wrong with benchmarks that are easy to understand, do not rely on several underlying variables and which can be revised annually?
Vote 5
You need not look far for them.
They are partners in crime
Allan gray
Oldmutual
Their lifeline is your investment
They fleece you as if tmao would never come.
Flee from them before they fleece your future.
Vote 6
Giantman
Your comment, as it relates to Allan Gray, is beyond ridiculous. AG is a highly professional and competent company that has since inception in 1974 outperformed the local equity market by some 6-7% per annum. In investment terms that is nothing short of phenomenal. Your comment smacks of such ignorance and a vicious insult to an entity that is a credit to the investment industry (and always has been).
Vote 1
Well done and good news that new names and new ideas are making their mark.
Vote 6
No returns are given for any of these funds.
Vote 4
Do what i do. Download their fact sheets and, using a spreadsheet get a view of their performances over the traditional 1, 3, 5 and 10 year periods. I have been doing this for a year with some selected funds. I’ll now have a look at some of these funds i was not aware of.
To publish all the performance stats is not the objective of a competition results report like this.
Vote 2
Why is Old Mutual Global Property Fund included? This fund cost me plenty a couple of years ago and its returns are still dismal.
Vote 1
How dare the fund do that to you. See what happens when investors chase performance: The fund, the fund manager and the industry get the blame.
Vote 2
Whose side are you on?
Vote
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