Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
Looks to be a good (high octane) momentum fund. Now that CTFAX has changed its investment posture from being a risk-off / risk-on type fund to one that follows more of a tatical positioning one this leaves Old_Skeet to become more active with my special investment positions when felt warranted. With this, I have added its ticker symbol (SAGAX) to my spiff watch list.
You could purchase one of the Zevenbergen Funds (Growth or Genea) investor class for $2,500.00 which is the same for the "A" class of Virtus Zevenbergen Innovative Growth Fund minus the load (maybe different if using a brokerage). Both Growth and Genea are large cap growth funds.
Schwab requires an initial minimum of $5K for a regular account for Virtus Zevenbergen Innovation Fund with a load; $100.00 initial minimum investment for the Zevenbergen Funds.
You could purchase one of the Zevenbergen Funds (Growth or Genea) investor class for $2,500.00 which is the same for the "A" class of Virtus Zevenbergen Innovative Growth Fund minus the load (maybe different if using a brokerage). Both Growth and Genea are large cap growth funds.
While the funds, e.g. SAGAX and ZVNBX, appear to be clones, there are small differences. The Virtus version is an order of magnitude as large, though still small: $504M vs. $46M. The holdings are slightly different, even in their top ten. The Virtus version has higher turnover (91% vs. 29%), while sporting a slightly lower ER (1.25% vs. 1.30%). I find that somewhat surprising, since submanaged funds typically add a layer of cost.
(Vanguard funds being an exception since Vanguard drives a hard bargain with money mangers, e.g. Vanguard Primecap Core (VPCCX) at 0.46% vs Primecap Odyssey (POSKX) at 0.65%)
Given the very growthy nature of the Zevenbergen funds and their highly concentrated portfolios (33-35 stocks), I agree that these are high octane funds. Looking at SAGAX's 2008-2010 performance (see chart) it is clear that this is an aggressive fund that can suffer big (over 50%) losses that are greater than those of its peers.
Where I might part company with Skeet is in calling this a momentum fund. Momentum funds typically have high turnover. It's hard to see a 29% turnover fund following a momentum strategy.
Here's what I can share from owning ZVNBX, one of the two Zevenbergen funds -- the other N class being ZVGNX.
The fund managers are very focused and articulate about their reasons for owning a concentrated portfolio of two large cap growth funds, the outcome of running separate managed accounts for 30 and 26 years in these products.
In general, the main difference between ZVNBX and ZVGNX (Genea) is that the latter is focused on founder-led companies (Musk, Bezos), does not own any health care companies, and is invested in more companies that are, let's say, very early in the curve.
Some nuts and bolts:
From a revenue side, their initial hurdle rate is owning companies that have a minimum growth rate of 15% but a revenue growth rate of between 25-30%, and if they can't grow at that rate, they consider selling. They want to own companies whose business model can sustain that growth rate for 1-3-5-10 years, those companies they consider durable.
(An example of a company they own is NOW (Service NOW), a tech company. It recently said that they expect $7.4T in digital transformation in the next three years.)
These funds can be volatile, and so investor returns lag investment returns, which they often do in many funds, as most of us know. Overall, however, they have had positive inflows since inception.
The average portfolio turnover since inception has been 30%.
Platform availability continues to expand. Having two LCG funds has not been as easy to market, and the firm has a small marketing budget. In mid-April total AUM was about $65M despite being in existence for less than 5 years. It's $95M now.
Schwab offers both N classes NTF for a purchase of $100.
While M* classifies the funds as LCG, they consider the funds all-cap. They can drive attribution in the small and mid cap space as well.
These offerings are worth investor awareness, additional thoughts, and what the initial poster is asking.
Lipper, unlike M*, does have all-cap (which it calls multi-cap) categories. Lipper concurs that ZVNBX is a multi-cap growth fund. Top rated (5) for all attributes except preservation (rated 3) - no surprise there.
Comments
https://www.zci.com/ (Zevenbergen's website)
Zevenbergen Genea Fund:
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=zvgnx®ion=usa&culture=en_US
Zevenbergen Growth Fund:
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=zvnbx®ion=usa&culture=en_US
Virtus Zevenbergen Innovative Fund:
http://quotes.morningstar.com/chart/fund/chart?t=sagax®ion=usa&culture=en_US
Zevenbergen's prospectus as of 10/31/19:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1261788/000089418919007092/zevenbergencombined.htm
Schwab requires an initial minimum of $5K for a regular account for Virtus Zevenbergen Innovation Fund with a load; $100.00 initial minimum investment for the Zevenbergen Funds.
(Vanguard funds being an exception since Vanguard drives a hard bargain with money mangers, e.g. Vanguard Primecap Core (VPCCX) at 0.46% vs Primecap Odyssey (POSKX) at 0.65%)
Given the very growthy nature of the Zevenbergen funds and their highly concentrated portfolios (33-35 stocks), I agree that these are high octane funds. Looking at SAGAX's 2008-2010 performance (see chart) it is clear that this is an aggressive fund that can suffer big (over 50%) losses that are greater than those of its peers.
Where I might part company with Skeet is in calling this a momentum fund. Momentum funds typically have high turnover. It's hard to see a 29% turnover fund following a momentum strategy.
The fund managers are very focused and articulate about their reasons for owning a concentrated portfolio of two large cap growth funds, the outcome of running separate managed accounts for 30 and 26 years in these products.
In general, the main difference between ZVNBX and ZVGNX (Genea) is that the latter is focused on founder-led companies (Musk, Bezos), does not own any health care companies, and is invested in more companies that are, let's say, very early in the curve.
Some nuts and bolts:
From a revenue side, their initial hurdle rate is owning companies that have a minimum growth rate of 15% but a revenue growth rate of between 25-30%, and if they can't grow at that rate, they consider selling. They want to own companies whose business model can sustain that growth rate for 1-3-5-10 years, those companies they consider durable.
(An example of a company they own is NOW (Service NOW), a tech company. It recently said that they expect $7.4T in digital transformation in the next three years.)
These funds can be volatile, and so investor returns lag investment returns, which they often do in many funds, as most of us know. Overall, however, they have had positive inflows since inception.
The average portfolio turnover since inception has been 30%.
Platform availability continues to expand. Having two LCG funds has not been as easy to market, and the firm has a small marketing budget. In mid-April total AUM was about $65M despite being in existence for less than 5 years. It's $95M now.
Schwab offers both N classes NTF for a purchase of $100.
While M* classifies the funds as LCG, they consider the funds all-cap. They can drive attribution in the small and mid cap space as well.
These offerings are worth investor awareness, additional thoughts, and what the initial poster is asking.
Thank you for your insights of these funds!
Growth Fund:
https://www.zci.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Zevenbergen-GROWTH-Fund-Fact-Sheet-1Q20.pdf
Genea Fund:
https://www.zci.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Zevenbergen-GENEA-Fund-Fact-Sheet-1Q20.pdf
Virtus Zevenbergen Innovative Growth Fund :
https://www.virtus.com/assets/files/1q3/zci_innovative_growth_stock_fund_factsheet_1131_i.pdf
https://tinyurl.com/Z3venbergen