Performance vs. Asset-gathering

For those of you in the know, which Asset Management shops are more geared towards performance rather than asset-gathering? Yes, I know asset-gathering is easier with good performance, but there are clearly some shops with very mediocre performance that still survive pretty well because they have good marketing arms (not going to name names here).

Looking for shops that are the opposite of that...more focused on the investment process and performance, and less about accumulating assets (and maybe even shy away from over-accumulating assets because it may impact performance). Bond or equity doesn't matter. Thanks.

 

Well, all the firms that only have management fees are completely geared toward building their AUM. Whether they do that through performance or marketing is the question (most do both). Really, it's tough to tell because the firms that are good at marketing will be able to present their performance well and the firms that are good at investing don't need as much fluff. I guess you could look at things like what percentage of funds last more than x years, etc.

I'm curious, which firms are more marketing oriented in your opinion?

 
Best Response

Look for ones that are interested in closing funds to outside investors and clearly care about performance more. The latter is kinda hard to get/know without being in the industry. I've found the mutual fund industry to kinda be like online dating in terms of the good ones only being available for a certain amount of time before closing (generalization of course). It takes a lot to be willing to close/limit capital since it means that you're basically giving up revenue that goes directly to the bottom line.

Two that I can think of on top of my head are Grandeur Peak and Huber (I have tremendous respect for the decisions the founder of Huber has made). There are a lot more, but those two I can say for sure care about performance more than anything else. In terms of getting in any of these kind of funds... it's nearly impossible since they rarely hire and have low turnover when they do. You kinda just really have to be at the right place at the right time with the right skill set.

 

@bigblue3908 Not allowed to comment on specific ones but if you look through a list of asset managers with a ton of money under management, some of them will have a few good teams and mostly mediocre ones, while others have pretty much all mediocre ones across the board.

@floppity Thanks for those recs. Actually I lied, I would like to know good funds that focus on HY and distressed debt. For example, the guys that founded Oaktree and DoubleLine both came out of TCW

 

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