Investment strategy
Both the Investec Global Energy Fund and the Schroder ISF Global Energy Fund are domiciled in Luxembourg, and they use the MSCI AC World Energy Index and the MSCI World Energy Index as their respective benchmarks.
The MSCI AC World Energy Index consists of large- and mid-cap companies in both developed and emerging markets within the energy sector, whereas the MSCI World Energy Index includes companies in developed markets only.
For the Investec fund, the investment process involves fundamental commodity research, in which the team assesses supply and demand of the global oil market, as well as other macroeconomic factors that drive energy prices, Ng said.
“The next stage involves individual company research, where the managers would identify businesses with high conviction that fit into the trends and the development of the sector.”
The Investec fund holds a concentrated portfolio of around 40 stocks, and they are mainly large-to-mid-cap companies, he said.
For the Schroder fund, the strategy adopts a bottom-up approach to select stocks, which are undervalued growth companies with strong financial strength.
“The team would estimate fair value and target share prices throughout the stock selection process by meeting the management, analysing the business outlook, cash flow management and getting input from industry contacts.”
The Schroder fund also holds a concentrated portfolio with 30 to 40 stocks, but relative to Investec, the Schroder team is more willing to look for opportunities in the smaller cap space of the sector.
For country allocation, the Schroder fund used to have a lower exposure to US companies than the Investec product.
But now, both funds have over 80% exposure to North America (US and Canada) and the UK.
Sector Weightings
Investec | % | Schroders | % |
Oil and Gas | 94.6 | Basic Materials | 96.8 |
Telecom, Media, Technology | 2.3 | Others | 3.3 |
Hardware | 1.7 | ||
Money Market | 1.4 |
Source: Funds’ Factsheet; FE
Region Weightings
Investec | % | Schroders | % |
North America | 67.7 | North America | 63.5 |
Europe Ex-UK | 12.5 | UK | 25.0 |
UK | 12.4 | Europe Ex-UK | 8.3 |
Pacific Basin | 5.0 | Others | 3.3 |
Asia Pacific | 1.0 |
Source: Funds’ Factsheet; FE
Performance
The Investec fund has a higher weighting in integrated oil and gas companies, and tends to adjust subsector weightings after analysing the commodity market, he said.
“Therefore, volatility of the fund tends to be lower [than the Schroders fund]. The stronger focus in larger cap also helps the fund to ride a commodity bear market better.”
The Schroder fund maintains a strong focus on the upstream business and it tends to be more sensitive to the movement of oil prices, he said.
This has exerted some pressure on the performance of the Schroder fund over the last one-, three- and five-year periods, as crude oil prices fell from over $100 per barrel to below $30 at the beginning of 2016.
“However, the Schroder fund enjoyed a strong rally in the first half of this year and outperformed the Investec fund following the rebound of oil prices.”
The bias toward the growth subsector and the tendency toward small-cap stocks make the Schroder fund the more volatile of the two, he added.
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The two funds have had similar performance patterns over the past three years, FE data shows.