Foord, M&G, and Melville Douglas global equity funds compared
Daily Investor analysed three global equity funds – – Foord, M&G and Melville Douglas – with the MSCI All Country World Index as a benchmark.
This analysis showed that while all three funds outperformed the benchmark in the past year, not one has been able to beat the benchmark over five years.
Foord, M&G and Melville Douglas are three popular asset managers in South Africa.
They offer South Africans the opportunity to invest in offshore equities, meaning their holdings are denominated in US dollars and managed outside South Africa.
Local investors can benefit from capital growth through equity performance and the rand’s depreciation versus the US dollar.
Foord Global Equity Fund (Luxembourg)
The Foord Global Equity Fund aims to “achieve an optimum risk-adjusted total return by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of global equities”.
The fund is invested mainly in North America (46%) but has equity exposure in Europe, emerging markets in Asia, and the Pacific.
The top five investments in this fund are Tencent, Freeport-McMoran, Alibaba, TGS NOPEC Geophysical and JD.Com.
This fund is the worst-performing of the three over five years since inception.
M&G Global Equity Fund
The M&G Global Equity Fund aims to “provide investors with capital growth over the long-term by investing in a diversified portfolio of global equity securities”.
This fund is biased towards the US – its top five holdings are the Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF, the M&G Global Property Fund, Apple, Microsoft, and US dollar cash.
This fund was the best performer of the three over one, three, and five years.
Melville Douglas Select Fund Limited Global Equity Class
Melville Douglas is a Standard Bank Group member and the biggest fund of the three compared in this article.
The Melville Douglas Select Fund Limited Global Equity Class aims to “provide long-term capital growth” by primarily investing in quoted global equities “which will maximise investment returns in USD”.
Like the M&G fund, it is highly biased towards the US, where 66% of its investments lie.
Its top holdings are primarily in the technology and healthcare sectors – Microsoft, Boston Scientific, Linde, Mastercard and Visa.
This is the best-performing fund of the three since inception but has had the worst performance over the past year.
Funds compared
| Foord Global Equity Fund (Class A) | M&G Global Equity Fund (Class B) | Melville Douglas Select Fund Limited Global Equity Class (Class B) | |
| Fund size | $436.5 million | $282.3 million | $849.69 million |
| Inception date | 2 April 2013 | 9 June 2017 | 02 September 2016 |
| Benchmark | MSCI All Country World Index Net Total Return | MSCI All Country World Index Net Total Return | MSCI All Country World Index Net Total Return |
| Currency | US dollars | US dollars | US dollars |
| Total investment charges/Total cost ratio | 1.46% (annualised 12 months) | 1.14% | 1.74% |
| Investment horizon/suggested investment period | >5 years | >7 years | 5 years |
Performance compared
| 1 year | 3 years | 5 years | Since inception | |
| Foord Global Equity Fund (Class A) | -6.2% | 7.7% | 3.6% | 5.0% |
| M&G Global Equity Fund (Class B) | -3.7% | 11.2% | 5.8% | 6.2% |
| Melville Douglas Select Fund Limited Global Equity Class (Class B) | -7.68% | 6.46% | 5.49% | 8.55% |
| MSCI All Country World Index (USD) (Net returns) | -8.26% | 8.81% | 5.82% | 5.54%* |
| iShares MSCI World | -7.22% | 10.00% | 7.09% | 9.76% |
| iShares Core S&P 500 | -7.71% | 12.12% | 9.79% | 6.47% |
* The MSCI ACWI Index was launched on 1 January 2001, and this data was given from 29 December 2000, as data before the index’s launch date is back-tested.
**Note that all information on the three funds compared in this article was obtained from their latest February 2023 factsheets.
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