HEAD-TO-HEAD: Fidelity versus Stewart

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Manager review

Nick Price has been running the Fidelity strategy since July 2009. He joined the firm as a Pan-European analyst in 1998, became assistant manager of the Fidelity European Growth Fund in September 2004, and began running EMEA mandates a year later.

Price relies on three regional portfolio managers for ideas, including Amit Goel for emerging Asia, Angel Ortiz for Latin America, and Greg Konstantinidis for EMEA. A team of about 45 analysts provide recommendations to the three regional managers, who each build portfolios of approximately 50 stocks.

Price then conducts further analysis on prospective holdings to ultimately build a portfolio of 60 to 70 names.

“Although Price has generally come across well in meetings over the years, the investment theses for a couple of portfolio holdings during an April 2019 meeting were subpar, and thus we’re monitoring whether or not it’s a trend,” said Daniels.

“That being said, we are comforted by the ample resources at his disposal and the multiple layers of analysis that is undertaken for each portfolio holding,” he added.

Ashish Swarup took over the Stewart fund in October 2016 from Jonathan Asante, who had been lead manager since 2008. Swarup joined the firm in 2014 from Fidelity, where he had worked since 2004.

“Although Swarup’s tenure here is limited, it’s encouraging that he posted strong returns while leading global emerging markets mandates at Fidelity from 2010-14,” said Daniels.

“Moreover, Asante and Swarup worked closely together on this mandate from early 2015 and were making joint decisions in the runup to the handover,” he added.

Swarup is supported by co-manager Tom Prew, who joined the firm in 2006 and leads the strategy’s Australian vehicle.

“The duo comes across as smart and articulate investors, demonstrating both in-depth stock-level and industry-level knowledge,” said Daniels.

Although the 2015 split with First State Stewart Asia leaves Stewart Investors with fewer Asia-focused analysts than it previously had access to, the resources and experience levels that remain are sufficient to cover its high quality universe of stocks, according to Daniels.

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