If you have been keeping an eye on UK funds in recent years, you will probably have noticed one named CFP SDL UK Buffettology. We always say that you must not be blinded by a slick marketing campaign, which includes an eye-catching name. Should you make an exception for a fund named after Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha?
This week fund manager worship is clearly a theme! It is the 10th anniversary of the CFP SDL UK Buffettology fund, so it’s a good time to give it the once over. Marketing hype or substance?
If you have been keeping an eye on UK funds in recent years, you will probably have noticed one named
CFP SDL UK Buffettology. We always say that you must not be blinded by a slick marketing campaign, which includes an eye-catching name. Should you make an exception for a fund named after Warren Buffett, the Sage of Omaha?
This is not Warren Buffett expanding into the UK market, but a fund run by a different manager, Keith Ashworth-Lord. He is a “seasoned practitioner of ‘Business Perspective Investing’ as championed by Ben Graham and Warren Buffett”, as stated on the fund factsheet.
In
this week’s other blog we compared Buffett’s investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway, with the US stock market – it is not great in recent years. Here we want to see if Keith’s fund has performed notably better versus the UK stock market.
He has done rather well. You can see in the table below that over 5 and 10 years Keith performed a good margin better than the UK stock market.
We also show the performance of our Dynamic UK Blended Portfolio over the same periods.
The Dynamic Portfolio has performed even better than the excellent UK Buffettology fund. But that isn’t the main takeaway.
The lesson is that 10 years ago you might have been lucky enough to pick Keith’s fund at launch, from the thousands available. Or you might have been impressed by the marketing and the Buffett reference. But you had no evidence of what might happen in the following 10 years.
On the other hand, you might have had a process to objectively identify the funds with a high probability of outperforming – as we use in our Dynamic UK Blended Portfolio.
There you have it. You can guess, or you can apply a process with a long track record of considerable success.
A fund manager is flesh and blood, even Warren Buffett, and like every great fund manager before him, the magic wears off one day.
In contrast, momentum, driving our Dynamic Portfolio is what happens every day – and it is perpetual.
Table 1: CFP SDL UK Buffettology and Dynamic UK Blended Portfolio vs. FTSE 100
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5 year %
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10 year %
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FTSE 100
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36%
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68%
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CFP SDL UK Buffettology
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91%
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277%
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Dynamic UK Blended
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133%
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318%
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Total Return. Performance figures correct as of 1st May 2021