Terry Smith, manager of the £16.4bn Fundsmith Equity fund, has highlighted strong long-term performance and low transaction costs against his rivals, in a bid to defend the weakest returns since inception the fund saw last year.
In his annual letter to shareholders, released every January, Smith acknowledged the fund had returned 2.2% over 2018, which was the "weakest [performance] in absolute terms since inception". However, he highlighted the fund still outperformed its MSCI World benchmark, which was down 3% over the year, and that it remained the top performer in the Investment Association (IA) Global sector. The manager went on to explain that Fundsmith was in the small minority of products in the IA that produced any positive return at all last year. He said: "There are 2,592 mutual funds in the IA univ...
To continue reading this article...
Join Investment Week for free
Signup and gain exclusive members-only insights - all free of charge!
- Unlimited access to real-time news, analysis and opinion from the investment industry, including the Sustainable Hub covering fund news from the ESG space
- Get ahead of regulatory and technological changes affecting fund management
- Important and breaking news stories selected by the editors delivered straight to your inbox each day
- Weekly members-only newsletter with exclusive opinion pieces from leading industry experts
- Be the first to hear about our extensive events schedule and awards programmes
