HEAD-TO-HEAD: Janus Henderson vs BNP Paribas Parvest

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The main differences between the two funds lie in the level of diversification and the willingness to make off-benchmark bets on sub-industries.

While both funds are managed through bottom-up stock picking, the Janus fund makes explicit bets away from the benchmark and the Parvest fund sticks closely to the weightings in its benchmark.

“The Parvest fund has nearly 42% of its exposure in pharmaceuticals, which is quite similar to the benchmark (45.6%),” Ng noted. Its biotechnology weighting was higher, however, at 26.8% at the end of September, compared to 16.7% in the index.

The Janus fund, on the other hand, had a 38.7% exposure to biotechnology and 27.7% to pharmaceuticals, indicating a clear bet on biotech.

“The Janus fund has a long-term bias toward biotechnology,” said Ng. In the past, it accounted for as much as half of the portfolio, he noted. “They have reduced it recently, but it is still the top sector in the fund.”

“The Janus fund is the less benchmark-aware of the two,” Ng said. Its active share was 63.77 (the number for the Parvest fund was not available).

Both funds stray from the index, however. Of the top 10 holdings in the benchmark index, the Janus fund held only one in its top 10, while the Parvest fund held two.

The Janus fund is more diversified, with 103 holdings in the portfolio at the end of September, as per the fund’s fact sheet. By comparison, the Parvest fund is a high conviction fund with a concentrated portfolio of only 39 holdings.

Both funds have similar country exposures, with US equities accounting for 77.2% of the holdings in each of the funds.. While both products have exposure to Japan in the low single digits, their exposure to the rest of Asia and emerging markets is minimal.

Janus Henderson lists the turnover rate of its fund as 50.2%. Parvest did not provide the turnover number in its factsheet.

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