Fund performance should not be measured on returns alone, but rather on the consistency of returns, according to Wellian Investment Solutions.
The discretionary fund management firm has created a ‘Fund Suitability and Performance Checklist’ to help advisers select the funds most aligned to their client’s objectives.
The Checklist aims to help advisers measure funds that may deliver the same return within the same period of time and focus on the consistency of how those returns have been achieved.
Richard Philbin (pictured), Chief Investment Officer at Wellian Investment Solutions says: ‘There are a vast number of reasons why a fund makes it successfully into a portfolio; correspondingly, there are a vast number of reasons why a fund doesn’t. We advocate the use of ‘Wellian’s Fund Suitability and Performance Checklist’ to highlight some of the questions we ask both of ourselves and of the fund manager to help define the characteristics of the fund under interrogation.”
Following analysis of funds that have delivered the same return and/or consistency over the same timeframe, Philbin expalins how best to measure the suitability of funds for client portfolios.
‘Our portfolios are designed to blend and balance different styles so as to deliver consistency in line with client objectives,” he says. ‘As multi-managers we have the ability to select the best managers from the tens of thousands out there, so when we build portfolios we look at certain defining characteristics as outlined in our Checklist.
‘Our primary aim is always to deliver consistency; we build portfolios to survive the long-term and therefore our turnover tends to be low because we are able to invest with conviction. As such, when we are asked whether we would choose a fund based on consistency or overall return, the answer is never straightforward. It could be either, neither, or both – depending on the factors we have outlined and summarised in our Checklist in order to bring some clarity to this particular issue.’
