The first of these to feature in a fund snapshot is the FCM European Total Return Fund. The fund was launched by Fleming Family & Partners Capital Management as a UCITS fund with over €100m of investors’ capital, transferred from their Austrian fund launched in 2003.
The managers have a background in running an equities portfolio for a large insurance company, UNIQA. They follow a stock-picking strategy, focusing in particular on German-speaking Europe, although the fund has invested as far afield as the UK, Turkey and Russia at times.
Although the fund does not take short positions, it makes use of cash aggressively. The key to its performance is timing the market correctly, and increasing the cash weighting to levels as high as 90% during times of crisis. This way the managers can lock in value and at the same time produce bond-like returns.
The fund is designed to appeal to conservative European institutions that have traditionally been heavily weighted towards bonds, but in recent years have found the bond market – even sovereigns – becoming increasingly risky. The fund is able to combine cash and equities to produce a smooth return profile.
The managers use a macroeconomic overlay combined with constant input from their network of contacts in central European business communities which they have built up during their time at UNIQA, the largest insurance company in Austria.
The fund can be liquidated in a day. Its cash component is invested in deposits and short dated German government bonds of less than one year duration. Companies with a market capitalisation of less than €1 billion are restricted to 20% or less of the equities portfolio.
About the managers
Guenter Festl and Richard Ploder both joined Fleming in 2007 from their previous role managing more than €1 billion in equities for Austrian insurance group UNIQA.
Key details
Fund name FCM European Total Return Fund
Management company Fleming Family and Partners
Promoter Fleming Family and Partners
Status Open
Inception date 15th October 2007
Strategy
Kind of fund Absolute Return
Strategy group Long
Region Europe All
Asset classes Equities, Credit
Particulars
Currency EUR, USD, GBP
Share class name EUR (A)
ISIN IE00B24CLY61
Bloomberg ticker FCMETAE ID
Domicile Ireland
Listing Irish Stock Exchange
Fund structure Investment Company with Variable Capital
NAV calculation Daily
Liquidity Daily
Notice (banking days) 1
Minimum investment 50,000
Min. investment currency EUR
Fees
Entry fee 5%
Exit fee 0%
Management fee 1.5%
Performance fee 15%
High water mark Yes
Hurdle rate No
Analysis
2010 return 5.94%
Annualised return 2.22%
Annualised volatility 2.91%
Sharpe ratio (2%) 0.08
Correlation to S&P 500 26.88%
Correlation to iBoxx -10.4%
Service providers
Administrator Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services
Custodian Northern Trust Fiduciary Services
Auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers
