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Last time, Citywire Amplify unveiled the 421-strong equities elite and revealed some of the groups they belong to.
But our data contains even more rich insights.
Today, Citywire Amplify can reveal the top asset classes in which our equities elite invest.
The elite have investments in 11 asset classes. However, this $779bn is not evenly distributed; most of these assets ($604.8bn, or 77.6%) are invested in just three asset classes.
Of the 553 funds the elite manage, 48% (263) of them are invested in North America, global and Europe.
Asia Pacific is fourth in attracting $39.5bn or 5% in investment. Representation of emerging markets and specific emerging market countries is lower with the elite allocating $31.6 bn and $33.9bn respectively to these asset classes:
- North America (98 funds);
- Global (84 funds);
- European (81 funds);
- Asia Pacific (59 funds);
- Specific European country (55 funds);
- Specific emerging market country (53 funds);
- Emerging markets (41 funds);
- Latin America (30 funds);
- UK (27 funds);
- Thematic (23 funds);
- and Middle East and North Africa (two funds).
North America equities
North America comes top as the most-favoured asset class for the equities elite. Of the 553 funds the elite manage, 98 (17.7%) are invested in North America. The combined value of these funds is $299bn, and the majority 57% ($171bn) comes from just three asset managers: Fidelity Investments ($71.8bn), JP Morgan ($59.4bn), and T Rowe Price ($40.6bn).
It’s a modern market truism that it’s hard to outperform in US equities. It’s worth noting, then, where elite managers found their alpha. Of the 10 asset classes represented three were small caps (42/98 funds). But best represented was Small Growth with 28 funds.
The biggest was the JPMorgan Small Cap Growth fund ($4.9bn) managed by Felise Agranoff, Matthew Cohen and Eytan Shapiro. Checking against its Citywire sector, US Small & Medium Companies, one might wonder what makes its managers elite: the fund is ranked 595/745 over three years, with a 20.5% total return. But the equities elite’s performance is risk-adjusted and it is the manager’s consistency that is being rewarded. Agranoff is AA-rated but spent almost all of 2020 and 2021 with a AAA. She is 86/779 managers in the Equity – US Small & Medium Companies sector over three years with a return of 44%, and manages three other funds.
Her Mid Cap Growth fund, co-managed with A-rated Timothy Parton, ranks 84 / 745 in the US small & Medium cap sector over three years returning 43%.
And the pair’s Growth Advantage fund is 12/449 over the same period in our US Growth sector, returning 65.6%.
Global equities
The elite have poured $243.5bn of the assets they manage into global equities, spread across 84 (15%) funds. Fidelity Investments, again, leads the other 226 asset managers with its elite investing $83.2bn in global equities. It is followed by Vanguard Group and WCM Investment Management with $54.7bn and $23.7bn invested respectively.
While the second biggest in terms of AUM, Vanguard has just one fund in the asset class: the $54bn giant Vanguard International Growth fund. The fund was founded in 1981 and its money is run by two other asset managers: Baillie Gifford (James Anderson, Tom Coutts) and Schroders (Simon Webber).
It ranks 26/406 in Citywire’s Global ex-US sector over three years with 28.5%.
Europe equities
Europe is the third-favoured asset class. This asset class is home to 81 funds managed by the elite worth $62.2bn. Of these, 22% are in the European Growth sector, and 20% each in European Small & Medium Companies and Europe Blend.
The best-represented group is Comgest. It has five funds ($11bn) split between two managers: Franz Weis and Arnaud Cosserat.
Citywire has compiled a list of the world’s best equity fund managers, and insight into the groups that employ them. The equities elite is a 421-strong list drawn from Citywire’s unique fund manager data.
Key facts
- Managers in the equities elite work for 227 different groups around the world.
- They manage 553 funds between them …
- … with a combined $774bn assets under management.
- The gender split of the elite managers is 378 men and 42 women.
- 189 managers have a Citywire AAA rating, and 155 have an AA rating.
How we did it
Citywire has tracked fund managers for 23 years, and currently follows 17,000 active managers in 84 countries.Manager analysis is based on the calculation of our proprietary Manager Ratio (MR) – based on the information ratio for each fund – aggregated across the funds each manager runs. This is attributed to the manager.All managers with a positive MR based on the last three years of performance are attributed a Citywire fund manager rating. The top 10% of this pool are given AAA, the next 20% AA, the next 30% A and the final 40% get a + rating.To create this new list, Citywire applied some extra criteria:
- Managers must have a three-year track record in managing one or more funds in any of the equity sectors Citywire covers.
- Along with a positive MR in at least nine of the past 12 month-to-month rolling three-year periods.
- And a positive MR in the three most recent rolling three-year periods.
- The positive MR must be in the top 30% of all positive MRs in each period.
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