Royce funds

ET91

Looking at the line up of Royce funds (US equities) they now only have 9 funds. In addition, Morningstar is no longer a fan. Royce premier is rated neutral as of August 11 2019. I still own Royce small-cap value; with $166 mil in assets not sure how long it will be around. The ride and the results have not been great; granted small caps and value investing have not looked good for a while. Things started changing at Royce when Whitney George star dimmed and he left Royce in Nov 2014. I guess he was convinced that inflation was coming and the portfolios he managed reflected that. When inflation never came, he started under-performing and things never improved. Oh how the times have changed. Not sure how many people on the board still own Royce funds but my guess is not many. People at MFO were negative on Royce after it got bought out by Legg Mason and Royce was pumping out funds left and right.

ET91

Some fund managers have been able to turn it around after suffering during 2008 such as Bill Miller, Ariel management, Dodge and Cox management, Bill Nygren (I think he suffered in 08),... Unfortunately, many have not: Berkowitz, Longleaf partners, Heebner, Third Avenue management, ...

Sven

Royce funds has been declining in performance for some time now. Long time ago I invested with them briefly but found Royce funds to be average (at best) as active managers. Today I use TRP mid- and small cap funds, but most of them are closed to new investors.

ET91

Thank you Sven for your response. I used to own T. Rowe Price small-cap value but bailed due to assets under management. However, assets under management ($9.6 bil as of August 11 2019) do/did not seem to affect performance (4 stars and rated bronze at Morningstar). Your comments about Royce funds are spot on.

Sven

@ET91, today environment is challenging for smaller cap funds. TRP is one of the few shops that close their funds in order to maintain their investment process and their expense ratios are reasonable. I invested with their Mid Cap Growth fund for sometime now and having the same manager for over a decade is excellent. The fund finally closed to new investors a number years ago. I understand the closed TRP New Horizon lost its long time manager last year and there is fund outflow today. There are talk that this fund may reopen, but do you want to invest with a new management team? You may want to check if other TRP smaller cap funds are still open.

Ted

@MFO Members: Owned Royce Focus Trust (FUND) before Whitney George bolted Royce and took the fund with him to Sprott.
Regards,
Ted

davidrmoran

Sven said:

Royce funds has been declining in performance for some time now. Long time ago I invested with them briefly but found Royce funds to be average (at best) as active managers. Today I use TRP mid- and small cap funds, but most of them are closed to new investors.

I dunno, just looked at venerable stalwart PENNX vs GABSX, WEMMX, and FLPSX over short and long terms (I know they are not very best of breed anymore, if they ever were, but are similar stalwarts), and there is nothing to complain about. Not saying you can't do better, but if I had PENNX in an old account I would not be bailing out, I think. Yes about TRP.

Shostakovich

@ET91 -- not fair to directly compare Bruce Berkowtize and Miller to Royce, I don't think.

Bruce just began drinking his own bathwater -- made bizarre moves with regard to fund staff and friendships, and wanted to grow that sucker and was on TV all the time. Sadly, despite his much-noted ability to understand investor foibles (honed while running book as a lad in Boston, we were reminded all the time !), his own ego got in the way. I hold FAIRX for a long time -- across the entire span of my holding period I ended up doing about as well as I would have had I held a solid fixed income fund. I would have made out quite well if I had bailed when Bruce's media exposure began to double. Perhaps the Fairholme Foundation is doing good work.

Miller just doubled down until he went bankrupt.

But with Royce, it was always all about the fees and putting old wine into lots and lots of different bottles, of various sizes and shapes. Royce also had a tendency to creep into international stocks while still benchmarking their funds to the US market. I always appreciated their honesty there. These organizing principle only got worse under LM. In recent year Royce/LM expanded the number of share classes and fund offerings (look at Dreyfus' gem of a fund for example -- special equity is going great guns; let's duplicate it and get Charlie in the press some more !). Royce renamed and closed / merged some poor performers, LM shoved some of their own managers onto the roster, and some of Royce's lackluster managers were retained (while Whitney George left?) and the records of these poor managers hidden from view. George Nekov, Chip Skinner, etc -- but look carefully -- Royce never publishes their historical records; or only selectively features them in fund reporting (this quarter yes, next quarter no). Next up at Royce -- the slow transition from star (Dreyfus, Zaino) managers to newcomers. When will they take Chuck after the 375 or so funds he manages? Trend chasing is perhaps excusable to some extent; the other stuff is not and really indicates to me that they aren't acting as a true fiduciary. I have found them really hard to trust them for some time.

ET91

Hi all, Thank you for the responses.

Shostakovich. Good point. I was just trying to say that Morningstar used to think highly of Berkowitz, Miller, Royce,... (at least if my memory serves me well; say prior to 2008). However recently, Morningstar no longer recommends Berkowitz, Miller, Royce,... That was my point I guess.