Fund providers are asserting themselves in the corona crisis.
(Photo: mauritius images / Westend61)
Cologne Swisscanto and Ökoworld have one thing in common. You are one of the investment companies in which the issue of sustainability has played an important role for several years. They discovered the field earlier than others and above all as the largest providers in the scene, in some cases even before the turn of the millennium.
In the early days, the pioneers were almost ridiculed for this approach. The opposite is now the case. Private and institutional investors demand sustainable fund products. The two providers still deliver today – they achieved an excellent result with more than 70 points in the Assekurata rating of the fund companies.
For the second time in 2021, Assekurata assessed not only the insurers but also the portfolios of the fund companies. For this purpose, all funds used by the insurers in their policies have been assigned to the corresponding providers. The score for each company is the average of the individual fund ratings. There are rankings for the entirety of the funds, but also for individual peer groups – such as “Aktien Deutschland” or “Mixed funds, income-oriented”.
“The fund companies have been convincing since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic,” summarizes Lars Heermann, Head of Analysis and Evaluation at Assekurata: 66 fund companies achieved at least 60 out of 100 average points and thus the grade “very good” – 13 more than in 2020 and more than half of all participants.
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In addition, 33 scored “good” (50 to 59 points) and 14 with “satisfactory” (40 to 49 points). Only ten companies had to be content with a “sufficient”. Overall, the average grade was better than in the previous year.
As in the previous year, the first and last places were taken by fund companies that hardly anyone in Germany outside of the insider scene knows. Number one is the Anglo-American Brown Advisory, whose history dates back to 1800. It scored with a single rated fund that specializes in US growth stocks.
Number two, NN Investment Partners, and number three, Mirova, were also included in the rating with only one fund product each. “Smaller asset managers concentrate on a few products and often show excellent performance there. That is why they often reach the top positions in the ranking, ”says Heermann.
The performance of the fund companies, which also achieved top average marks of over 70 points with six to 15 funds, is to be rated even higher. As the best, Morgan Stanley achieved fourth place in the overall ranking with six funds and an average of 80 points.
The US company impressed with the performance of its equity funds, as did the British Columbia Threadneedle. The ten funds they rated achieved an average of 75 points. They come from all investment segments.
Flossbach von Storch scored just one point less on average. In the past decade, the Cologne-based company has developed into by far the largest asset management company in Germany outside of the major banking sector. They are particularly strong in aggressive, flexible mixed funds – Multiple Opportunities is now Germany’s largest mutual fund, with assets of around 35 billion euros in various tranches.
Smaller asset managers focus on a few products and often perform well. Lars Heermann, Assekurata
The Paris investment boutique Comgest, on the other hand, stands for pure equity funds and has specialized in the selection of quality stocks with above-average growth for decades. This investment style is consistently maintained and is noticeable, for example, in the performance of Comgest European Growth, but also in various emerging market funds.
The very largest fund companies cannot come up with such high average grades. That is not surprising for Heermann either. “For the big players, between 20 and over 100 funds are included in the rating. The companies cannot achieve top results in all areas. ”
After all, the large Anglo-American fund companies such as Fidelity, Vanguard and JP Morgan achieved the grade “very good” with 61 average points each. This was also achieved by the German Allianz Global Investors with 60 points out of 35 graded funds.
DWS, the listed fund company of Deutsche Bank and the world’s largest investor Blackrock, who achieved a respectable average of 56 points with a maximum of 123 funds and ETFs, failed just short of the hurdle to “very good”.
The results of the formerly renowned Franklin Templeton were rather weak with 43 average points. Warburg Invest performed even weaker. The nine funds of the Hamburger Privatbank achieved an average of 35 points. That was only enough for the overall grade “sufficient”. Only fund companies with a maximum of two funds placed themselves behind Warburg, and they were particularly disappointing.
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