Fidelity Moneybuilder Global

Fidelity Moneybuilder Global is sound, but could use more experience at its underlying funds.

Tom Whitelaw | 24-11-08 | E-mail Article

Richard Skelt is a highly experienced multi-manager investor who has been in charge of the Moneybuilder Global fund for over ten years. He is supported by a broad team of portfolio managers and analysts, including Fidelity’s Head of Investments Geraldine Stewart, an 18-year veteran at the group. Skelt’s team is well qualified but the fettered nature of this offering (meaning it can only invest in Fidelity funds) means that its performance is at the mercy of Fidelity’s underlying fund managers.

Since Skelt took control in late 1998 until the end of 2005 this had not been a problem. However, with all managers relying heavily on the same internal analyst research a couple of bad picks can affect a number of funds. This happened in 2006 when the group was hit by a double whammy: after missing the large-cap rally in the middle of the year they were further hindered by over-investment in online gaming stocks whose value plummeted after punitive legislation in the US. This understandably hurt the performance of Moneybuilder Global and it underperformed its Morningstar UK Large Cap Blend category peers for the first calendar year since Skelt took control.

Since this group-wide underperformance in 2006 Fidelity has suffered a large turnover in fund management staff. Most notably Anthony Bolton stepped down from Fidelity Special Situations with the fund being split into separate Global and UK offerings to be managed by Jorma Korhonen and Sanjeev Shah respectively. There was also another manager change on Fidelity American in February 2007 and wholesale changes across the UK range saw Tom Ewing (UK Growth) and Aruna Karunathilake (UK Aggressive) arrive in December 2007 and Michael Clark (Income Plus) and Matt Siddle (Growth + Income) took over from John Stavis in July 2008.

Turnover on this scale is a concern. We have now met with all of the aforementioned managers and, although our view is broadly positive, it must be noted that, in the main, they are inexperienced when it comes to managing retail money. However, Skelt has had the benefit of seeing them progress through the group’s fund manager training process and has been able to closely monitor their performance on Fidelity’s pilot funds. With this in mind he feels he currently has the strongest bench of UK fund managers available to him for some time. Nevertheless, the limited experience of that group hurts this offering's overall appeal.

That said this fund should not be ignored. Skelt and his team are highly experienced and the underlying managers all benefit from the backing of Fidelity’s strong research team. Skelt is also able to use his proven skills as an asset allocator to further boost performance. Investors should however note that the fund does not charge an initial fee but it makes up for the shortfall by increasing its TER to 2.11%. This is 54 basis points (0.54%) higher than the 1.57% charged on Fidelity’s identical Wealthbuilder fund, but that gets hit with a 3.5% initial charge. It would therefore be more prudent for interested long-term investors to buy the Wealthbuilder fund, while those with an investment horizon of less than two years may find better value here.

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