A Fund For All Seasons

The Foord Flexible Fund of Funds is a top performer in the category of unit trusts that gives managers an unconstrained investment mandate. The lead fund manager of the three funds associated with the Foord Flexible Fund of Funds is Dave Foord, who tells Liz Still how he and his team sift through the clutter and avoid the obvious in search of the underlying promise in funds anywhere in the world.

Requiem For A Dream

For many, the Foord Compass variable rate debentures were the dream investment of the past decade. Sadly, owing to changes in the tax legislation, debenture holders recently voted to have the debentures redeemed. This took place on 31 March 2014 and the debentures were subsequently delisted from the JSE’s mainboard.

Morningstar Win 2014

Foord collected the coveted “Best Fund House” award for management companies with a smaller unit trust range at the Morningstar unit trust awards held in Cape Town on 19 February 2014. Morningstar annually recognises unit trusts that have delivered excellent risk-adjusted returns for investors. The Morningstar Awards are designed to help investors identify the country's most exceptional funds and fund managers.

Raging Bull Win

The Foord Flexible fund of Funds received the award for Best Worldwide Multi-Asset Flexible Fund (SA Domicile) at the 18th Annual Raging Bull Awards in Cape Town.

Foord Recognised

Dave Foord, global CIO of Foord Asset Management, has received recognition for the success by ANZ New Zealand Investments Limited in New Zeland’s recent Fund Manager of the Year awards. Mark Brown, Head of Equities at ANZ, attributed ANZ’s success to “doing things the Dave Foord way."

Investing Offshore

Making the decision to invest offshore can be overwhelming for South African investors. This is due to the sheer size of the investment universe with all of its various products, asset classes and service providers, coupled with the associated risks.

Foord Appoints Deputy CIO

Foord Asset Management has made an important addition to its investment team by appointing Daryll Owen into the position of Deputy Chief Investment Officer (“Deputy CIO”) from 2 September 2013. The role of the Deputy CIO is a new role and was created with Daryll’s appointment. The objective is to add operational capacity to the office of the Chief Investment Officer without affecting the portfolio management arrangements in place for client portfolios.

New Faces At Foord

Our Foreword newsletter over the past two quarters has profiled the recent new hires at Foord. For those who may have missed those inserts, we set out below a short profile of the new faces to have most recently joined the Foord team:

Flexible Fund Turns Five

Since its inception in 1981, Foord Asset Management has achieved considerable investment success for its clients. This success is largely due to the consistent application of an investment philosophy that strives to get the big calls right; to buy securities at the right price; to take a long-term view and to diversify the portfolios appropriately. The primary focus on protecting capital in real terms and avoiding index relative investing leads naturally to attractive absolute returns over the long term. Over 30 years, the firm has proven its abilities in both asset allocation and security selection, the core competencies required in the multi-asset class investing space.

The Problem With Risk

At Foord, we have long espoused the view that volatility of investment returns is not a suitable measure of investment risk. However, the investment fraternity seems preoccupied with this flawed measure of risk in determining whether or not an investment fits a particular profile.