S&P assigns rating to Winton Global Equity Fund (UCITS III)
Standard & Poor's Fund Services has announced that it has assigned an AA fund management rating to the Winton Global Equity Fund (UCITS III).
This fund is managed off the same underlying process as the Winton Futures Fund, one of the world's most successful systematic trading funds. In common with the flagship product, this fund is managed off a data-driven process generally with no manager discretion at the point of execution. However, there is ongoing oversight of the process with discretion to reduce risk in certain circumstances.
The fund invests in actual stocks rather than futures and was originally launched as a 130:30 Cayman-domiciled fund in June 2008. At the end of September 2009 the leveraging power was removed and the fund became 100% net and gross long. In December 2010 the fund was relaunched as a Dublin-domiciled Ucits III mandate.
The fund aims to outperform the MSCI World index by 2-3% a year. However, the index has no influence on portfolio construction other than defining the investment universe along with the S&P Global 1200 index. The fund is managed relative to a neutral portfolio that is constructed on volatility rather than market-cap weighting. Active bets (versus the base portfolio) are driven by stock return forecasts from the team's fundamental and technical factor models.
"Given the strong start, and the success of this well-resourced group on other mandates including its flagship Winton Futures, the fund achieves an S&P AA rating," said Randal Goldsmith, analyst, S&P Fund Services.
"We are delighted by this strong rating which we believe reflects not only the strong performance of the Fund but also the strength of the underlying research process at Winton," commented Mark Precious, head of equity research and portfolio manager of the fund.
"We believe that further discoveries will yield other enhancements and it is the future of this research that clients are buying into as much as the past performance," added Precious. "The launch in June 2008 was a useful stress test of the system but our outperformance both in 2008 and the two subsequent years showed the Fund's ability not only to deliver downside protection but also to participate in a strong market recovery. The Fund's UCIT III registration in December 2010 and the low fee structure also make it attractive to institutional investors."
The individual fund report can be downloaded from the Standard & Poor's Fund Services website at fundsinsights.com.