Head To Head

HEAD-TO-HEAD: Blackrock versus Schroders

FSA compares two UK equity products: the BlackRock GF United Kingdom Fund and the Schroder ISF UK Equity Fund.

by Thomas Blott 30 September 202230 September 2022

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Isaac Poole, Oreana Portfolio Advisory Service

Introduction

Much like every asset class, global equities have fared poorly this year against a backdrop of rising inflation, tightening monetary policy and sluggish economic growth.

Last month, Credit Suisse’s global chief investment officer, Michael Strobaek, revised the bulge bracket bank’s house view on the asset class to “underweight”.

Some asset managers, notably Schroders and Fidelity, have said they are confident of the long-term appeal of the asset class, although it would take a brave investor to predict with any degree of certainty that the markets have bottomed out.

Despite the FTSE outperforming most other benchmarks year-to-date, it would take an even braver investor to bet on UK equities right now as soaring inflation, a wide current account deficit and a run on sterling after the new government outlined its fiscal policies have cast a shadow over the asset class.

Against this background, FSA asked Isaac Poole, chief investment officer at Oreana Financial Services to select two UK equity funds for comparison. He chose the BlackRock GF United Kingdom Fund and the Schroder ISF UK Equity Fund.

	BlackRock	Schroders
Size ($m)	292.6	71.4
Inception	1985	2000
Managers	Nicholas Little	Nick Kissack, Bill Casey
Three-year cumulative return	-2.65	-6.05
Three-year annualised return	-6.54	-11.21
Three-year annualised alpha	-2.09	-5.60
Three-year annualised volatility	25.22	29.29
Three-year information ratio	-0.16	-0.98
Morningstar star rating	**	*
Morningstar analyst rating	Neutral	Neutral
FE Crown fund rating	*	*
OCF (retail share class)	1.83%	1.46%

Source: FE Fundinfo, Morningstar. (Data in US dollars, 23 September 2022)

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