(Disponible uniquement en anglais)
During yesterday’s award ceremony in Frankfurt, the rating agency Lipper awarded the title of ‘best international equity fund within a five-year period’ to the Sparinvest Global Value Fund. The Lipper Fund Award was awarded to Danish investment company Sparinvest, based in Luxembourg, as a result of its constant and risk-adjusted increase in value of 91.45 per cent in five years.
The gold medal has been taken by the Global Value Fund of Danish investment firm Sparinvest. The fund generated an overall constant and risk-adjusted value increase of 91.45 per cent in five years (31.12.2001 - 31.12.2006). As a result of this the Lip-per rating agency handed over the Lipper Fund Award Germany 2007 to fund manager Jens E. Moestrup Rasmussen at yesterday’s award ceremony in Frankfurt. The Sparinvest Global Value Fund was set up five years ago, on 14.12.2001 (WKN A0DQN4; ISIN: LU0138501191) and has a volume of EUR 868.27 million (as of 31 December 2006).
"The returns that our value team have generated show us that our investment
strategy of continual investment in undervalued stocks with a mid-term returns
horizon was and is the right decision," says Jan Stig Rasmussen, CEO of
Sparinvest in Luxembourg. “Even more im-pressive is the fact that we took the
decision to launch a global value fund in the European market against a backdrop
of steadily rising financial markets. Value was not the order of the day, and
all-out growth was considered the only genuine form of investment. Today we can
see that a value strategy can be just as rewarding as growth in rising markets
and we remain convinced that it’s always the better strategy for turbulent
markets.
Capital preservation takes priority over fantastic yields
The Danes’
flagship UCITS fund invests worldwide in undervalued stocks, usually belonging
to companies with low or medium market capitalisation. However, fund manager
Jens E. Moes-trup Rasmussen is keeping away from emerging markets due to
unpredictable political risk.
The six-strong value team, headed by
Rasmussen, checks out more than 20,000 companies every month. The portfolio only
admits stocks of companies whose market price is at least 40 per cent below
Sparinvest’s calculation of their intrinsic value.
The team puts each
company through its paces. “We analyse the substance of every stock in the same
way as we would if we were looking to acquire the entire company. This enables
us to reduce the default risk to a minimum,” says Rasmussen. There are
currently around 100 stocks in the fund’s portfolio. “We sell a stock as soon as
it reaches the intrinsic value that we have calculated. We are, however, unable
to predict when exactly this value will be reached. The average duration of
stockholding is between 3 and 5 years.”
“For us, security comes ahead of
fantastic yields. We concentrate on capital preservation,” explains Rasmussen.
“We want to achieve positive earnings in the long term, in every market
situation, without aligning ourselves to a benchmark. So risky investment
manoeuvres are strictly taboo for us.” The turnover of the Global Value Fund
only amounts to 10 to 20 per cent of the portfolio, compared with over 70 per
cent in the case of conventional global in-vestment funds. The benefit: low
costs, which do not eat into earnings.
Key data of the Global Value
Fund
Global Value (WKN A0DQN4; ISIN: LU0138501191) is a mirror fund of "Value
Aktier", the big-gest equity fund in Denmark, which Jens Moestrup Rasmussen has
been managing since 1997. It is also one of three sub-funds that are authorised
for sale in 13 European countries under the umbrella of Luxembourg-based
Sparinvest SICAV.
The company
Sparinvest was founded by a group of savings banks in 1968 as
the first mutual fund in Den-mark. Since it was founded, the company has been
owned by in excess of 90 shareholders including Danish banks, insurance
companies and pension funds. Sparinvest’s Luxembourg subsidiary has been
expanding European distribution since 2001.
Over 30 funds, designed for
institutional and private investors, are currently managed by the Sparinvest
Group. The total investment volume now amounts to more than EUR 16 billion.
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