TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth

This fund sits in the Investment Association Flexible sector, which means the manager is afforded a significant degree of discretion over asset allocation and is allowed to invest up to 100% in equities. TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth invests in around 30-60 underlying funds and investment trusts, with a preference for out-of-favour areas. Turnover of underlying funds in the portfolio tends to be very low.

Our opinion

We like the team’s straightforward process and focus on managers with a simple, yet disciplined investment process. The focus on high quality funds, coupled with strong exposure to investment trusts, offers a valid alternative in the IA Flexible sector. Backed by an experienced management team, we like the high conviction positions the managers take – something which is supported by the low turnover of funds.

Fund manager

Tony Yarrow started his career as a financial adviser in 1984 and has been managing funds since 1988. He founded Wise Investment, now Oak Investment Partnership, in 1992 to help people manage their investments and financial affairs. He has co-managed the Wise Multi-Asset Growth fund since its launch in 2004.

Vincent Ropers joined the Wise Funds team in April 2017 as a co-portfolio manager. In his previous role, Vincent managed a Tactical Asset Allocation mandate as part of the multi asset investing team at Standard Life Investments. He joined Standard Life Investments from Ignis Asset Management where he started as a fund manager in the multi-manager team, before joining the asset allocation team at its creation. Philip Matthews joined the team in September 2018 as co-portfolio manager having previously worked at Schroders.

Investment process

The team adopt a very slight value bias which means buying a stock or fund at a low share price and waiting until it increases in value before selling. However, the fund is not exclusively value in nature. The process starts by building a macroeconomic position and then creating an asset allocation framework from a growth, risk and value perspective. These macro views are fed by the teams’ consistent meetings with managers. The team will look to meet the managers of a product on at least two occasions before adding them to a portfolio. Any further meetings prior to inclusion are due to concerns the product is too expensive, in which case the managers will keep in close contact should the price fall to an acceptable level.

The principle difference between the process of choosing an investment trust and a fund is from a valuation perspective, in this case the managers will spend more time on liquidity, flows and sentiment on an investment trust.

To ensure the managers have strong conviction in their choices any addition in the portfolio must be worth at least 1%, with the managers building from there. The managers will not invest in any funds or investment trusts which have less than £50m of assets, which helps from a liquidity front.

Risk

TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth has been less volatile than the IA Flexible sector in the past decade. As a multi-asset vehicle, the fund has around 30-60 underlying holdings to offer diversification. The team focus on high-quality funds and investment trusts investing in out-of- favour areas, this means performance can take longer to come through.

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