Most Equity Funds of Wealth Managers Disappoint

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) October 11, 2009 --

Zurich, 11.10.2009: The equity fund returns of the 15 biggest wealth managers and banks worldwide are mostly worse than the respective benchmark indices. This is the main conclusion of a new report (www.myprivatebanking.com/Report/myprivatebanking-equity-fund-report-2009) released by MyPrivateBanking.com, an independent information platform for private investors. The report analyses equity funds with focus on the regions of USA, Europe, Asia and global coverage. During the last 5 years about 80% of the funds have returned below average returns and only funds from Deutsche Bank (DWS), the provider Black Rock associated with Merrill Lynch and Lombard Odier were able to perform better than the benchmark indices.

The analysis of the providers who offer at least two relevant funds in the respective regions showed the following average accumulated profits/losses over a period of five years (in comparison to the benchmark indices, status as of end July 2009):

1.Deutsche Bank/DWS: +4.36%
2.Black Rock (Merrill Lynch): +3.97%
3.Lombard Odier: +1.03%
4.UBS: -4.84%
5.Credit Agricole: -5.31%
6.HSBC: -7.53%
7.JP Morgan: -9.02%
8.BNP/Fortis: -10.00%
9.Morgan Stanley: -13.32%
10.Pictet: -14.1%

11.BNP/Parvest: -14.33%
12.Credit Suisse: -18.81%
13.Julius Bär: -20.06%

Two other wealth management companies did not have a sufficient number of relevant funds that qualified their inclusion in the analysis.

In case of equity funds focusing on the USA, five providers could at least outperform the index. In the case of those focusing on Europe only three could outperform the index. And in case of funds focusing on Asia all the providers performed worse than the index.

"It is a known fact that funds generally perform worse than the respective indices but the fact that the self-claimed wealth management specialists have performed so much worse than the market, is very disappointing", Steffen Binder, Research Director of MyPrivateBanking.com, summarises the result of the study. "As the providers often include in-house products in the portfolio for their clients, these are often paid for twice, once due to the high fund charges and again through lost profits“.

The total expenses of the analysed funds were between 1.08% and 2.35% of the investment amount per year but this is not the only reason for the bad result according to Christian Nolterieke, Managing Director of MyPrivateBanking.com: "In case of half of the providers, the negative divergences vis-à-vis the index are in the double-digits and this is not only due to costs but also due to bad investment decisions. Particularly if, like in case of the Asian equity funds, not a single fund outperforms the benchmark“.

The analysts of MyPrivateBanking.com hence recommend the clients of wealth management companies to invest only in those funds that have given above-average returns over a period of many years or to invest in so-called passive index funds (ETFs).