Robeco Chinese Equities Class D EUR fund performance examined by Roger Aitken

The £1,035.13 million (€1,461.09m) Robeco Chinese Equities Class D EUR Acc fund top ranked the UK Registered Fund sector out of 251 funds over the past one year to 30 June 2015 with +34.85%. The fund just pipped the AXA Framlington Health R Inc fund, which posted a performance of +33.57%.

However, the latter was ranked top overall for both the past three and five-years to the cut-off date with +93.59% and a spectacular +151.57%, respectively. By contrast Robeco Chinese Equities Class D EUR posted +56.37% (23rd rank) and +49.30% (92nd rank) over these two respective periods.

The investment objective of the Robeco sub-fund, which launched back in 2004 and has since mid-2007 been managed by Victoria Mio, Senior Portfolio manager, is to provide long-term capital growth by taking exposure of at least two-thirds of its total assets to equities in companies with their registered office in China or a significant part of their economic activities based there.

Mio, who worked in China for five years prior to joining Robeco and has held a senior position at JPMorgan Chase & Co., was a Certified Public Accountant in the US. The fund’s trailing 3-, 5- and 10-year annualised returns as at 16 July 2015 were +14.28%, +7.65% and +15.77%, respectively. And, at present the fund’s net asset allocation is split 98.44% in stocks and 1.56% in cash.

In terms of regional asset allocation, Asia (Emerging) accounts for 91.23%, Latin America 8.52% and Asia (Developed) 0.25%. The fund’s top 5 sectors are: Financial Services (39.60%); Technology (18.08%); Industrials (7.16%); Communication Services (7.13%) and Healthcare (7.07%).

At the stock level, Tencent Holding Limited represented 8.39% of the entire fund, followed by China Construction Bank Corp (6.15%) and China Mobile Ltd (6.07%). Collectively the top five holdings accounted for almost a third (30.5%) of the entire fund’s investments.
Within the US Mutual funds sector, which displayed the best peer group average over the past three and five years at +43.15% and +78.83%, the $1,933.53m Eventide Gilead N fund retained its top ranking over the past one, three and five years with performances of +18.20%, +116.18% and +207.31%, respectively. It outpaced the consistent $1,190.93m Parnassus Endeavor Fund in second place with +13.86% over the past year, +81.55% (2nd rank) over three years and +143.46% (2nd) over last five. The average fund size of the US Mutuals sector stood at US$499.56m.