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The last two pages are interesting as it gives more details about the new Global Reach fund and their future roadmap.
Basically they envision Global Reach will contain stocks they identify using multiple strategies, and their other funds will be subsets of Global Reach as follows:
Global Opportunities: a more concentrated version of Global Reach – 100 - 150 names
International Opportunities: a sub-set of Global Opportunities– Global Opps ex US names
Emerging Markets Opportunities: a sub-set of International Opportunities–pure Emerging
and Frontier Market exposure
US Opportunities: a sub-set of Global Opportunities–just the US names
Global Value: a sub-set of Global Reach–just the Fallen Angels
Global Microcap: a sub-set of Global Reach–just the micro-caps
Sounds like the heavy lifting will be done by the management team that selects the equity portfolio for the Gobal Reach Fund. The others funds seem simple enough to manage that the Expense Ratio and manager decision making could be kept to a minimum. In a sense, all the other funds I would consider as "selective" sector index funds that index the mother ship fund rather than the market.
I transferred my Wasatch international funds into Global Opportunities early and am happy with the returns. The opening of additional funds seems to require me to time the various markets, which is what I hired them to do. I'm a bit concerned that this fragmentation may mean that the best ideas aren't necessarily in the global fund, in which I was quite willing to allow massive overweighting in a market segment they thought would do well. It seems this another example of smart people developing their competencies at a "mother" company (why is it never "father"?), then taking off for greener pastures. I'll stick for now, but I'm too dumb and otherwise occupied to pick the next winner in their fragments. I must admit that I prefer the "global" perspective, since I don't want to exclude the US. Guess I'll see which global fund Dr. Snowball next recommends. (No rush, I've got a couple of weddings to deal with.)
Reply to @bee: In practice I think all the managers/analysts will be "working" for the Global Reach Fund, in the sense that they will all be tasked with finding interesting investment targets (whether best-in-class, fallen angels or stalwarts). All those will get pooled into Global Reach, and then the other funds will pick and choose the relevant companies from the Global Reach pool.
Although in theory that means the majority of the work (and expenses) would be done for the Global Reach Fund, in reality I expect all the funds will have similar expenses since they are actually sharing the same resources.
In any case, David said he would be profiling this fund in August, so I'll defer to his more informed analysis.
I'm sorry, but to me it seems like all they are doing is justifying the existence of so many funds. They are putting some marketing spiel around why when they just had 2 funds, one of which they closed in the interest of shareholder, now they need so many funds since they are not really prepared to lose revenue because of it.
Now I own GPGOX in my IRA. But I don't do bulls**t. If I like Grandeur Peak, then I would either need Global Opportunities or I would need Global Reach based on my risk tolerance. What they are doing here, is giving people a reason to buy one of their international only or domestic only stock funds assuming people out their don't trust their expertise OR don't want to let go of their existing funds for equity or international exposure.
The Value fund rationale for fallen angels either suggests lack of faith in their own expertise or simply more horse manure. How about you just tell me EACH new fund is being seeded by $1 million each by the manager in each fund? I don't need more nonsense about why you are starting a new fund then. Because if I trust Grandeur Peak expertise, I will buy the fund period.
Now I'm sure I'm in the minority. Fact of the matter is Grandeur Peak has a legacy to protect since they came from Wasatch. MFO followed in the footsteps of FundAlarm and have taken it to a new level. Grandeur Peak should NOT be following the Wasatch Playbook. Wasatch lost it somewhere along the line, just like Royce before them. That's why their performance has suffered. I need Grandeur Peak to be my MFO to Wasatch. I for one am contemplating selling my GPGOX.
Reply to @bee: At first blush, I was dismayed when learning of this expansion. Giving it more thought, I'm less concerned.
It appears that Global Reach is the full palette of companies covered with a positive outlook, with Global Opportunities being the best ideas across the spectrum of "categories"...and the rest of the funds being a slice and dice of Reach depending on what you feel may be the best category of the whole.
I recall posting when the first report of Global Opportunities came out, of being a bit surprised at the number of holdings. Guess I need to re-calibrate based on the 500 holdings of Global Reach.
Reply to @VintageFreak: I think you are correct that it is a marketing spiel, but it is based on their business plan which appears sound. I don't think there is anything wrong with outlining the company they want to be. They are saying the plan all along was to have 3 billion dollars under management. They will offer a global fund, an international fund, an EM fund, a domestic fund, a deep value (fallen angels) fund and a micro cap fund.
So, how is that different from any other boutique mutual fund operations, like Matthews for example? And in no way does it sound like they are trying to be as big as Wasatch which has ~26 funds. And how many people (on this board) are in love with anything PIMCO which has a gazillion funds - most over-lapp and many are fund of funds. Now that is a fund house that markets many mediocre products that people buy. They are the kings of marketing - and it works.
I'd cut the owners of Grandeur peak some slack with this plan. It's a solid offering of funds in specific categories. I'm happy to own GPGOX, happy they soft-closed it at a low EUM. "Sell it"(???) - no way.
Reply to @MikeM: Hey Mike. That's what I'm saying. They proved they are NOT different. And I never heard about their business plan about gathering assets till $3B until now.
Royce is "independently managed" from Legg Mason. LM does not interfere with how the funds invest. I hope no one will try to convince me LM has nothing to do with Royce starting funds left/right/center to gather assets.
Yet ANOTHER reason I find WGRNX, COBYX, PVFIX, etc. attractive. No bullshit about "large cap stocks did not do well, so I sucked too". Instead "this is the way I'm managing money, you like, you invest". These guys left Wasatch because "We really wanted to add value by managing a smaller amount of assets". THAT was in the interview done by Gardiner/Walker when they started their fund. There was no mention of this $3B business plan. To the contrary they know if they had blabbed their plan, less people would have invested and they know it.
Thank you for making me think and remember. People think no one will rememeber what they said 3,4 years again. And they can spin things as they like to justify their actions any time they want. It is even more clearer to me know these guys are no better than anyone else. I now KNOW I will be selling GPGOX at some point in the very near future. I might use it for "trading" but it has been part of my long term plans - NO MORE.
I am an Investor in GPGOX and GPIOX. I was confused when GPROX was launched as it appeared that there was a large overlap of scope between GPGOX and GPROX. But now I understand GPROX has more names and more diversified and accommodate higher AUM and GPGOX is more focused, kind of their best ideas. At this time, I do not see any need to invest in GPROX but it can help GPGOX with economies of scale as the pressure purchasing more of the best ideas is diluted through other names.
Now, they have only 3 actual funds at this time of which 2 original ones are closed. So, at this time if you are a new investor you have only one option. They have outlined 4 more potential funds in the future. When and if this actually happen is something to think about.
Of those 4 funds, only one is filed for registration and that is the Emerging Markets fund. I am actually interested in investing in it when it does become available (especially if it is cheaper than WAEMX/WAFMX). It will be a fund that will more directly compete with WAEMX and WAFMX as GPGOX and GPIOX does with WAGOX and WAIOX.
I actually take a different view from most here and give Grandeur Peak the benefit of the doubt and I'll explain why I think that way.
First off - here's an example excerpt from Grandeur Peak in Dec. 2012:
Said Mark Siddoway, Head of Client Relations, “We have now been telling our story for over a year and have continued to find great interest in both the global small cap market segment and our team. The biggest challenge for many advisors is figuring out where our funds should be slotted within their overall allocation—as few people have global small cap, or even international small cap, broken out as a separate allocation at this point. We believe this same lack of attention is part of what makes global small caps such a compelling investment opportunity.”
Of the $400M under management, roughly $260M is in the Global Opportunities strategy and $140M is in the International Opportunities strategy. Firm President, Eric Huefner, said, “We will likely soft close our two initial strategies at around $400M in Global Opportunities and $300M in International Opportunities in order to leave future capacity for existing clients, potential performance, and other products in our global small cap pipeline. We are committed to keeping our assets small because we believe nimbleness is a significant investment advantage in the small and micro cap space. We have outlined a ten-year product roadmap for Grandeur Peak, and we will consider both the firm’s current and future products as we decide where to close each strategy.
I really don't see as much of an issue as others do. They are simply offering subsets of their larger global investment offering as oppose to Royce offering more flavors than Baskin Robbins. So Grandeur Peak is just going to carve out slices of the same pie to offer. But they are going to carefully manage the sum of the assets as a whole to ensure capacity won't be an issue. I mean hell --- the T.Rowe Price (US) Smallcap Value fund itself has $8.8B in assets so close to 3 times larger than the entire capacity of what Grandeur Peaks will manage!!!
Again, I politely disagree in that they are shoring up a multitude of different strategy funds similar to other fund families (e.g. Royce). They are simply carving out slices of the Global Reach segment to make available.
Lastly, some may have disparaged Grandeur Peaks for not staying true to offering just "Global" fund offering but why not offer just the US or International slices as if to imply that Grandeur Peaks is afraid some may be afraid to trust them to managing the whole global piece? Again, I have to politely disagree! Advisors quite often like to control the US vs International allocation on their own as every client have different needs and willingness for international allocation.
Moreover --- suppose as an example I have $300k in my 401k and $100k in my IRA and my international choices in my 401k absolutely suck! But say I love the Global Peak smallcap strategy --- how can fit the Global Fund in my IRA when I'm already severely overweight to US allocation! Maybe I just want their expertise with just International investing to add to my IRA. Why are we ignoring these situations with the assumptions that everyone is in the same situation with a clean slate or have wide open 401k choices and therefore assume everyone is on the same level playing field!
Grandeur Peak could've let the Global Opp fund grow to say $2B if they wanted to and let that be their max capacity. But no - they've decided to close it fairly early around $500M in assets and give room for other small slices cut from the same cloth as their grand Global Reach fund.
It's not as if they've announced that they are going to work on offering a Global Emerging Market Dividend Growth Strategy fund.
But what about WGRNX and PVFIX and FAIRX? How come they don't offer slice'n dice offerings? These are very different types of funds!!! They are fairly concentrated! For f***ing sakes WGRNX holds just 32 stocks from anywhere around the world! It's a bottoms-up value investing style fund that makes concentrated bets including 5-10% allocations to individual stocks. WGRNX is approaching $2B and suppose it grows to $5B down the road - does that make David Winters a more holier Fund Manager because he's decided not to offer 3-5 funds?
PVFIX holds just 39 tiny (microcap stocks) and with currently 40% cash.
I have no problem with Grandeur offering slices of their strategy for those asset allocators that would like to combine the slices in different proportions. These guys are bottom up stock pickers so they do not care about the macro picture that much and that is why I like them. So, if you want to manage an allocation it makes sense to buy the slices and create your own allocation. I actually thought of using a momentum strategy to shift a portion between the funds.
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: I only mentioned PVFIX, WGRNX etc. to make a point. Having a managed focused on exactly one strategy is how I'm leaning that's all. Needless to say it has nothing to do with how Grandeur Peak or any other MF company invests
Reply to @Kenster1_GlobalValue: Totally agree. I just don't get the negative vibe on Grandeur Peak based on this review. Selling GPGOX or any of their funds based on this would be silly IM<HO.
Question: If the registration for the Emerging Markets fund was filed in March, the same month as Global Reach according to The Funds in Registration page, ideally shouldn't it be available relatively soon? GPROX has been trading for over a month now..
Didn't intend to thread hijack, apologies if I did.
Comments
Basically they envision Global Reach will contain stocks they identify using multiple strategies, and their other funds will be subsets of Global Reach as follows:
and Frontier Market exposure
Sounds like the heavy lifting will be done by the management team that selects the equity portfolio for the Gobal Reach Fund. The others funds seem simple enough to manage that the Expense Ratio and manager decision making could be kept to a minimum. In a sense, all the other funds I would consider as "selective" sector index funds that index the mother ship fund rather than the market.
Your thoughts?
It seems this another example of smart people developing their competencies at a "mother" company (why is it never "father"?), then taking off for greener pastures.
I'll stick for now, but I'm too dumb and otherwise occupied to pick the next winner in their fragments. I must admit that I prefer the "global" perspective, since I don't want to exclude the US.
Guess I'll see which global fund Dr. Snowball next recommends. (No rush, I've got a couple of weddings to deal with.)
Although in theory that means the majority of the work (and expenses) would be done for the Global Reach Fund, in reality I expect all the funds will have similar expenses since they are actually sharing the same resources.
In any case, David said he would be profiling this fund in August, so I'll defer to his more informed analysis.
Now I own GPGOX in my IRA. But I don't do bulls**t. If I like Grandeur Peak, then I would either need Global Opportunities or I would need Global Reach based on my risk tolerance. What they are doing here, is giving people a reason to buy one of their international only or domestic only stock funds assuming people out their don't trust their expertise OR don't want to let go of their existing funds for equity or international exposure.
The Value fund rationale for fallen angels either suggests lack of faith in their own expertise or simply more horse manure. How about you just tell me EACH new fund is being seeded by $1 million each by the manager in each fund? I don't need more nonsense about why you are starting a new fund then. Because if I trust Grandeur Peak expertise, I will buy the fund period.
Now I'm sure I'm in the minority. Fact of the matter is Grandeur Peak has a legacy to protect since they came from Wasatch. MFO followed in the footsteps of FundAlarm and have taken it to a new level. Grandeur Peak should NOT be following the Wasatch Playbook. Wasatch lost it somewhere along the line, just like Royce before them. That's why their performance has suffered. I need Grandeur Peak to be my MFO to Wasatch. I for one am contemplating selling my GPGOX.
It appears that Global Reach is the full palette of companies covered with a positive outlook, with Global Opportunities being the best ideas across the spectrum of "categories"...and the rest of the funds being a slice and dice of Reach depending on what you feel may be the best category of the whole.
I recall posting when the first report of Global Opportunities came out, of being a bit surprised at the number of holdings. Guess I need to re-calibrate based on the 500 holdings of Global Reach.
So, how is that different from any other boutique mutual fund operations, like Matthews for example? And in no way does it sound like they are trying to be as big as Wasatch which has ~26 funds. And how many people (on this board) are in love with anything PIMCO which has a gazillion funds - most over-lapp and many are fund of funds. Now that is a fund house that markets many mediocre products that people buy. They are the kings of marketing - and it works.
I'd cut the owners of Grandeur peak some slack with this plan. It's a solid offering of funds in specific categories. I'm happy to own GPGOX, happy they soft-closed it at a low EUM. "Sell it"(???) - no way.
Royce is "independently managed" from Legg Mason. LM does not interfere with how the funds invest. I hope no one will try to convince me LM has nothing to do with Royce starting funds left/right/center to gather assets.
Yet ANOTHER reason I find WGRNX, COBYX, PVFIX, etc. attractive. No bullshit about "large cap stocks did not do well, so I sucked too". Instead "this is the way I'm managing money, you like, you invest". These guys left Wasatch because "We really wanted to add value by managing a smaller amount of assets". THAT was in the interview done by Gardiner/Walker when they started their fund. There was no mention of this $3B business plan. To the contrary they know if they had blabbed their plan, less people would have invested and they know it.
Thank you for making me think and remember. People think no one will rememeber what they said 3,4 years again. And they can spin things as they like to justify their actions any time they want. It is even more clearer to me know these guys are no better than anyone else. I now KNOW I will be selling GPGOX at some point in the very near future. I might use it for "trading" but it has been part of my long term plans - NO MORE.
Now, they have only 3 actual funds at this time of which 2 original ones are closed. So, at this time if you are a new investor you have only one option. They have outlined 4 more potential funds in the future. When and if this actually happen is something to think about.
Of those 4 funds, only one is filed for registration and that is the Emerging Markets fund. I am actually interested in investing in it when it does become available (especially if it is cheaper than WAEMX/WAFMX). It will be a fund that will more directly compete with WAEMX and WAFMX as GPGOX and GPIOX does with WAGOX and WAIOX.
First off - here's an example excerpt from Grandeur Peak in Dec. 2012: I really don't see as much of an issue as others do. They are simply offering subsets of their larger global investment offering as oppose to Royce offering more flavors than Baskin Robbins. So Grandeur Peak is just going to carve out slices of the same pie to offer. But they are going to carefully manage the sum of the assets as a whole to ensure capacity won't be an issue. I mean hell --- the T.Rowe Price (US) Smallcap Value fund itself has $8.8B in assets so close to 3 times larger than the entire capacity of what Grandeur Peaks will manage!!!
Again, I politely disagree in that they are shoring up a multitude of different strategy funds similar to other fund families (e.g. Royce). They are simply carving out slices of the Global Reach segment to make available.
Lastly, some may have disparaged Grandeur Peaks for not staying true to offering just "Global" fund offering but why not offer just the US or International slices as if to imply that Grandeur Peaks is afraid some may be afraid to trust them to managing the whole global piece? Again, I have to politely disagree! Advisors quite often like to control the US vs International allocation on their own as every client have different needs and willingness for international allocation.
Moreover --- suppose as an example I have $300k in my 401k and $100k in my IRA and my international choices in my 401k absolutely suck! But say I love the Global Peak smallcap strategy --- how can fit the Global Fund in my IRA when I'm already severely overweight to US allocation! Maybe I just want their expertise with just International investing to add to my IRA. Why are we ignoring these situations with the assumptions that everyone is in the same situation with a clean slate or have wide open 401k choices and therefore assume everyone is on the same level playing field!
Grandeur Peak could've let the Global Opp fund grow to say $2B if they wanted to and let that be their max capacity. But no - they've decided to close it fairly early around $500M in assets and give room for other small slices cut from the same cloth as their grand Global Reach fund.
It's not as if they've announced that they are going to work on offering a Global Emerging Market Dividend Growth Strategy fund.
But what about WGRNX and PVFIX and FAIRX? How come they don't offer slice'n dice offerings? These are very different types of funds!!! They are fairly concentrated! For f***ing sakes WGRNX holds just 32 stocks from anywhere around the world! It's a bottoms-up value investing style fund that makes concentrated bets including 5-10% allocations to individual stocks. WGRNX is approaching $2B and suppose it grows to $5B down the road - does that make David Winters a more holier Fund Manager because he's decided not to offer 3-5 funds?
PVFIX holds just 39 tiny (microcap stocks) and with currently 40% cash.
I have no problem with Grandeur offering slices of their strategy for those asset allocators that would like to combine the slices in different proportions. These guys are bottom up stock pickers so they do not care about the macro picture that much and that is why I like them. So, if you want to manage an allocation it makes sense to buy the slices and create your own allocation. I actually thought of using a momentum strategy to shift a portion between the funds.
Question: If the registration for the Emerging Markets fund was filed in March, the same month as Global Reach according to The Funds in Registration page, ideally shouldn't it be available relatively soon? GPROX has been trading for over a month now..
Didn't intend to thread hijack, apologies if I did.