Following the search for consistently underperforming funds in Hong Kong, FSA has decided to look for them, separately, among the funds available to Singapore investors.
Aberdeen had eight funds in the doghouse, followed by GAM with six. Amundi, Eastspring, Invesco, Janus Henderson, Pictet and UOB each had four.
But the list is topped by hedge funds Odey Swan and Odey Odyssey.
Among the equity funds, 15 are focused on North America, 10 on emerging markets and 8 on Asia-Pacific ex-Japan.
There were also some big dogs, with the largest, the Carmignac Investissement listing AUM of $5.62bn . The second largest was the Invesco Balanced Risk Allocation Fund $4.1bn.
Worst underperformers in the past three years
| Fund | Category | Benchmark | 3-yr Relative return (%) | AUM (million US$) | OCF (%) |
| Odey Swan | Hedge Funds/Structured Products | MSCI Daily Total Return Net Europe | -28.71 | 270.5 | 1.71 |
| Odey Odyssey | Mixed Assets | ICE Libor USD 3 Months | -18.62 | 124.4 | 1.49 |
| GAM Star Global Selector | Global Equity | MSCI World | -14.97 | 10 | 2.56 |
| GAM Star (Lux) Emerging Alpha | Hedge Funds / Structured Products | MSCI Emerging Markets | -11.81 | 44 | 2.49 |
| Carmignac Portfolio Investissement Latitude | Global Equity | MSCI AC World | -10.91 | 110.2 | 2.56 |
Data: FE, as of 31 December 2017. Performance in US dollars. Relative return with respect to the fund’s benchmark, averaged over three years. Note that during the specified period the funds may have delivered a positive return but they underperformed their benchmarks.
The universe of mutual funds registered for sale in Singapore differs quite substantially from that of funds authorised for sale to investors in Hong Kong, in the sheer number of available products (4081 in Singapore to 1766 in Hong Kong, according to FE), but also in their range and variety.
The doghouse list was inspired by Bestinvest’s bi-annual “Spot the Dog” fund report, highlighting consistently poor-performing mutual funds in 2017.
Approximating Bestinvest’s methodology, FSA used FE data to find funds that underperformed their benchmarks by 5% or more on an annualised basis, during the three-year period ending 31 December, as measured by relative return. We found 290 such funds among those registered for sale in Singapore (those for which benchmark data were not available were excluded).
The list was then narrowed down to funds that underperformed their benchmarks in each of the past three calendar years.
FSA’s list includes 97 funds. The majority (75) are equity funds, but the list also includes nine mixed asset funds, six hedge/structured product funds, four commodity/energy funds and two fixed income funds.
Top dogs
On the flipside, a similar exercise aiming at finding best funds, with a mirror version of the same criteria, yielded a list of 26 funds that consistently outperformed their benchmarks.
Polar Capital, Old Mutual, IDFC and UBS all have two funds on the list.
Four of the 26 were European equity funds and four were China equity. No US equity fund made it to the top performers’ list.
Best overperformers in the past three years
| Fund | Category | Benchmark | 3-yr Relative return (%) | AUM (million US$) | OCF (%) |
| UBS (Cay) China A Opportunity | China Equity | MSCI China A Net Return | 23.03 | 892.8 | N/A |
| Polar Capital UK Absolute Equity | Absolute Return | 3m GBP Libor | 22.78 | 766.5 | 1.65 |
| Allianz China A-Shares | China Equity | MSCI China A Total Return (Net) | 15.78 | 246.6 | 2.3 |
| Old Mutual UK Smaller Companies Focus | Europe Equity | Numis Smaller Companies (ex Inv. Comp.) | 15.33 | 515.7 | 1.6 |
| PXP Vietnam Emerging Equity | Asia Pacific ex-Japan Equity | Viet Nam Index (VNI) | 12.56 | 163 | N/A |
