T. Rowe Price perfects ‘all cap’ approach

By leveraging its network of more than 100 equity investment professionals around the world, T. Rowe Price convincingly took out the top spot in the International Equities (Broad Cap) category in the Fund Manager of the Year awards.

T. Rowe Price Global Investment Services country head for business in Australia and New Zealand Murray Brewer said the Global Equity Fund’s objective is to provide long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in a portfolio of securities of companies listed on various world stock markets, including those listed in developing countries.

According to Brewer, most traditional managers are typically large cap, benchmark-orientated managers that value growth, and as such have a limited ability to participate in the emerging market growth story.

“If you’re accessing a traditional manager, you’re not getting any growth. But we have a product that is all market (emerging and developed), and all cap,” he said.

Brewer said the fund’s portfolio manager, Rob Gensler, was also important to its success.

With 25 years experience in the financial services and a background in absolute investment, “Robert hates losing money,” Brewer said.

“What makes Robert unique is that he is the single decision maker across all geographies and sectors, so he has a view of the whole world, whereas a lot of the traditional funds will have a US stock guy, an Asian stock guy, etcetera, all bunged together,” he said.

Finalists in the International Equities (Broad Cap)category are Zurich Investment Management and Fidelity Investments.

Fidelity investment director Mark Hammond said its Global Equities Fund’s strength lies in its “go anywhere approach” to investing.

“This approach allows the portfolio manager to take advantage of Fidelity’s research strength with global stocks,” he said.

“The fund can invest in companies from countries all around the world and has loose portfolio constraints.”

According to Hammond, Fidelity’s research organisation is the bedrock on which the fund is built.

“Because it’s very difficult for a global fund manager to cover the whole globe properly without a strong research resource, we spend a lot of time, effort and energy making those researchers communicate effectively.”

Zurich’s global equities fund also proved to be a strong performer.

Director of investments at Zurich Matthew Drennan said the fund ranked number one in the Mercer Survey for the past three years.

“The fund has been performing extremely well … with a total return for the three years at 10.6 against a benchmark 3.5.”

Drennan added that the fund’s strength lay in its thematic approach to investing, rather than constructing the portfolio around benchmark weightings of individual stocks.

“The fund looks at what sorts of trends are emerging in the world economy and using research to find if it’s a genuine trend,” he said.