I've been invested in Wintergreen fund for about 8 years now. I had been impressed with David Winters' prior track record at Mutual Discovery. The fund has lagged its category now over the past 1, 3, and 5 years and I am considering redeploying the assets between Artisan Global Equity and Grandeur Peaks Global Reach. If others on the board have followed or invested in Wintergreen and have any thoughts, I'd value your input. Thanks very much
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I did, however, buy Nestle and Wynn Macao, his then current "finds". NSRGY is up 14% (so-so) and WYNMY is up 42% in less than a year (I bought it primarily for the 4% yield.) His arguments for NSRGY (formula and baby food in a more prosperous developing world) and WYNMY (the Chinese like to gamble and there are more newly rich, plus it paid 4% to wait) were convincing. Maybe the fund is too big for individual stock to move it much. Following recommendations here, I have holdings in the two funds you suggested. They will probably make you more than Wintergreen, which has underperformed its peers and outperformed its bogey - MSCI EAFE NR USD. But for and ER of 1.89% on $1.6, I'd smile for the camera and give even good advice away, since the purchases can only help my stock picks.
Sorry that I left off the B - that's $1.6B x 0.0189 = >$30M (every year!! Doubt he buys lottery tickets.) Could buy a lot of research. No wonder funds rarely close.
I have a number of overlapping holdings with Wintergreen, including Nestle, which I recently added back in an attempt to go more conservative again. Nestle is never going to be an exciting holding, it's a SWAN - Sleep Well At Night. Well, aside from when they recall Hot Pockets for bad meat lol. In terms of formula and nutrition, Abbott (ABT) is a more boring play on that, with significant EM exposure.
The Genting companies (which WGRNX holds and I don't, but have talked about before) have created amazing casino resorts in Asia and elsewhere, but the company (and its spin-offs) have been largely ignored by the market in favor of the Macau stocks. Jardine (which continues to be one of my largest holdings) had a disappointing year last year, but has gotten off to a good start this year and has a pretty remarkable long-term record. It remains a very long-term, largely get it and forget it (reinvesting divs) holding for me. I also have a smaller long-term holding in other Asian conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.
Coca-Cola has not done very well lately, and while Winters likely intended it as a play on the emerging consumer, you have the company's sugar-filled drinks coming under increasing scrutiny both in this country and elsewhere. Will Coke go anywhere? No, certainly not, but the company needs to evolve. An interesting semi-alternative play is FEMSA (FMX in the US), the Mexican conglomerate, which owns a stake in Heineken, a stake in Coca-Cola FEMSA (Coca-Cola Latin America, although it has begun to branch out) and Oxxo (an enormous convenience store chain in Mexico and Latin America.) I thought Wintergreen owned FEMSA at one point, but I don't see it in the latest SEC filing.
Cielo (CIOXY in the US) has been one of the few Brazil plays that has held up okay (in comparison) - it used to be Visa Brazil until regulation and it is now a diversified credit card play. Wintergreen also has Mastercard, which has done exceedingly well until a bit of a dip recently. As I've noted before, I do like the credit card companies.
Wintergreen also has nearly 20% of the fund in various tobacco companies, which I think effects the fund and there have been some developments negative to that industry (CVS not stocking it anymore, Walgreens may follow.) The new e-cigarettes have become big, but I dunno, I'm not seeing the real forward path for the tobacco industry. They haven't acted like they are going to be big in pot if it's legalized en masse.
I like a number of Wintergreen's holdings, but own the ones I like most separately.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/latest-moves-of-david-winters-wintergreen-advisers-2014-02-24/print?guid=60E1FBA2-6763-496F-BA1A-645EDDFE0E7E
Regard,
Ted
http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/first-class-merchandise-at-bargain-prices/
The expense ratio of 1.89% is excessive, unacceptable, indefensible, and an absolute deal-breaker. Considering trading costs, an investor's total costs are going to be well over 2%.
For any manager to beat an appropriate benchmark by 2% annualized over an extended period before costs is a difficult thing. IF he were able to do this, you would only match that benchmark.
The game is very difficult to win when you start out with a handicap like this. Not impossible, but difficult. Very difficult.
I notice the new funds you are considering also have high fees -- nearly as high as Wintergreen.
For a world stock fund, what advantages do you believe these funds would possess over say, Dodge and Cox Global Stock (DODWX) ER 0.65% or Vanguard Total World Stock Index (VT) ER 0.19%. ?
Do you believe that you can give VT a 2% annualized head start and still stand better than even odds of beating it. If you do, I must respectfully disagree.
Regards,
Ted
Lipper Snapshot Of WGRNX: http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/wgrnx
I just watched the WealthTrack video posted by Ted above (Thanks Ted): http://wealthtrack.com/recent-programs/first-class-merchandise-at-bargain-prices/
I found David Winters to be pretty impressive in that Wealthtrack video
His performance was excellent in 2010 and 2011, and poor in 2012 and 2013.
His 2008 performance was poor, I believe -39%, and disappointing as one of the main reasons I purchased the fund was for risk management and good down market relative performance.
I'm sticking with David Winters for now, although I agree with dryflower that the expense ratio is excessive, unacceptable, and indefensible. I just went to the fund's website to find a contact email address to express my concerns about that unacceptable expense ratio.......couldn't find the email address. I'm going to call the fund's transfer agent and see if I can get an email address to express these concerns.
Actually, the Yahoo data are consistent. I can see how you might make the mistake of adding the quarterly returns, but that's not the way it works.
What you are forgetting is that each quarterly loss is a loss from the value at the beginning of the quarter, not the (larger) value that existed at the beginning of the year.
If you are willing to take instruction from a Moron, I will explain it to you completely.
Yahoo's figures from 2008 show the following quarterly losses:
(6.51) in other words .9349 of the starting value
(5.87) .9413 of the staring value
(12.15) .8785 of the staring value
(21.16) .7884 of the starting value
So if we start the year 2008 with a value of 100, we have 93.49 left at the end of the first quarter.
93.49 x .9413 = 88.002
88.002 x .8785 = 77.309
77.309 x .7884 = 60.95 (end of year value)
Starting Value 100 - 60.95 = a loss of 39.05
Needless to say, I was hoping when I sent my check that I would get even better returns than I was enjoying from my investments in the Mutual Series funds (which I've been in for over 30 years and continue to hold). Figured a great manager would get superior results with a new fund that he totally controlled. Nope.
My Mutual Series funds have performed better with less risk. I noticed recently that the money I invested at the same time in Meridian Value and Meridian Equity income are far ahead of my investment in Wintergreen.
This is not the first time I was disappointed when I followed a manager. I think we need to give due credit to a fund's management and analysts, and not just to the marquee manager, when we evaluate a fund.
Dryflower, thanks for that excellent explanation. Great job.
Gotta love it.
Regards,
Ted
Evergreen: Barbra Streisand;
Thanks so much for sharing the information from the annual report. Much appreciated.
Nah, I'm not much into Barbara --- I'd rather watch Scarlett Johansson or Kate Upton try to sing however they like.
By the way - I thought Colorado was the only State where you can legally smoke pot?