ii Super 60 Annual Review

The Super 60 is reviewed on an ongoing basis. Throughout the year we closely follow fund-specific developments and regularly communicate with fund managers, while also paying attention to market-related macro events.

Our annual review process, which is performed the same time each year (published every January), ensures that we endorse only the best-in-class products.

For our analysis we look at the entire universe of potential investments and apply specific criteria, which include the consistency of performance, efficiency of risk controls and a well-defined investment process.

We have chosen to partner with Morningstar’s Manager Selection Services group to enhance our fund selection process. Morningstar will follow the principles of our seven-step robust selection and monitoring process. A more detailed version is available here.

What we look for

Our goal is to offer a range of individual investments in order to capture the broader market. Therefore we include different asset classes, styles and approaches. We pick investments that fit different purposes in each individual’s portfolio, including a mixture of core and more adventurous options. We consider different investment styles (such as value, growth and momentum), and whether the fund manager tends to favour larger companies or smaller companies. By including different investment approaches, this could result in lower correlation and greater diversification benefits for the end investor.

In line with our methodology, we scrutinise not only funds that are falling behind their benchmark, but also those that show consistent performance above their representative index and sector. This is necessary to ensure we are not picking managers that are at the top of their performance cycle and could potentially head into a period of underperformance. That said, fund managers that have underperformed the market due to reasons such as their style being out of favour could still make it to our list if they are able to show robust investment processes that have proven to be successful over the long term (ideally over a full market cycle).

Regardless of the market environment, our aim is to pick the best fund managers with the view to hold the product for the long term. This is applied into our robust assessment criteria, in which we have no conflicts of interest and is designed to align our goals with the best outcome for our customers.

It is, however, important to note that past performance is not an indicator of future returns.

The latest review and changes

The Super 60 Annual Review has officially been completed. Following analysis conducted by Morningstar's Management Selection Group, we have made some changes.

The following investments have been promoted to the rated list:

Global Equities

• Removal of Artemis SmartGARP Global Equity Fund from the Adventurous category. The fund will be replaced with Dodge & Cox Worldwide Global Stock Fund as an Adventurous option.
• Addition of GQG Partners Global Equity Fund as a Core option. 

Global Equity Income

• Removal of Murray International Trust from the Adventurous category. 
• Removal of Morgan Stanley Global Brands Equity Income Fund from the Income category. The fund will be replaced with Bankers Trust as a Core option. 

UK Equities

• Removal of Jupiter UK Special Situations Fund from the Adventurous category.

European Equities

• Removal of Man GLG Continental European Growth Fund from the Adventurous category. The fund will be replaced with Fidelity European Fund as an Adventurous option. 

Japanese Equities

• Removal of Lindsell Train Japanese Equity Fund from the Adventurous category. The fund will be replaced with Man GLG Japan Core Alpha Fund as an Adventurous option. 

Emerging Market Equities 

• Addition of Capital Group New World Fund as a Core option. 

Mixed Asset

• Removal of Fidelity Multi-Asset Income Fund from the Income category.  

Sterling Bonds

• Removal of Royal London Sterling Extra Yield Bond Fund from the Adventurous category. The fund will be replaced with Invesco Sterling Bond Fund as an Adventurous option. 
• Removal of Rathbone Ethical Bond Fund from the Adventurous category. It remains in our ACE 40 list of sustainable ideas. 
• Addition of Royal London Corporate Bond Fund as a Core option. 
• Removal of Gam Star Credit Opportunities Fund from the Smaller Company category. 

You can review our revised Super 60 list here and more detail is shown under the ‘Recent Updates’ section.