Head To Head

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Aberdeen Standard versus Jupiter

FSA compares two European equity products: The Aberdeen Standard Sicav European Equity Ex UK Fund and the Jupiter European Growth Fund.

by Francis Nikolai Acosta 15 January 202115 January 2021

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Darius McDermott, Chelsea Financial Services

INTRODUCTION

Several fund managers believe that stocks that have been heavily hit by Covid-19 should provide investors with opportunities this year on the back of an expected global economic recovery.

One of them is European equities, which posted negative returns for the most part of last year. However, the asset class started to recover in late-November, with the MSCI AC Europe Index returning on positive ground at around 5% for the full year, according to data from FE Fundinfo. Year-to-date ending 14 January, the index is up 2.7%.

Since last month, managers have recommended clients to start diversifying toward the asset. For example, Matt Quaife, head of multi-asset investment management for Asia, said that West European equities are highly geared to positive vaccine news. They have also become very cheap, with the Stoxx 600 index’s two-year forward price-earnings ratio trading at 20% discount to the MSCI World.

Echoing Quaife, Tai Hui, Asia chief market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management, said that the broader economic recovery should benefit European equities and that investors should also start investing in the asset class.

Against this backdrop, FSA asked Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, to compare two European equity products: The Aberdeen Standard (ASI) Sicav European Equity Ex UK Fund and the Jupiter European Growth Fund.

	Aberdeen Standard	Jupiter
Size (Ucits / US-domiciled)	€136.1m ($165.24m)	€1.36bn ($1.65bn)
Inception (Ucits / US-domiciled)	2006	2001
Manager	Ben Ritchie, Kurt Cruickshank, Roseanna Ivory	Mark Heslop, Mark Nichols
Three-year cumulative return	32.32%	24.13%
Three-year annualised return	10.21	8.07
Three-year annualised alpha	5.62	5.78
Three-year annualised volatility	20.34	20.91
Morningstar analyst rating	Neutral	Neutral
Morningstar star rating	*****	*****
FE Crown fund rating	*****	*****
OCF	1.69%	1.72%

Source: FE Fundinfo, Morningstar Direct.

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