Given the poor recent performance of many investment trusts compared with the FTSE 100 index – which has held up relatively well this year and which investors can access via a tracker fund for a few basis points – the age-old issue of fees has reared its head again.

The big question for investors in investment trusts which carry a high OCF (ongoing charge fee) is should they stick with them when they have a down year or two or should they be ruthless and look for a better option?

This article looks at a range of investment trusts with ongoing charges of more than 2% of assets under management and ask if they are worth their money.

NOBODY’S PERFECT

Before we start it’s worth reminding that markets are volatile, and investing involves a degree of risk.

Richard Bernstein, formerly chief investment strategist at Merrill Lynch and now chief executive of his own investment company, has examined the probability of losing money when investing.

Taking the US stock market between 1985 and 2006, Bernstein calculated the likelihood of losing money was 46% if the investment was held for one day, 42% for a week, 35% for a month, 27% for a quarter, 18% for a year, 14% for three years and zero over 10 years.

In other words, over short time periods there is a higher chance of losing money whereas the longer the holding period the lower the risk of capital loss.

At the same time, as every fund and trust says in their marketing material, past returns are no guarantee of future performance, so even if a manager has beaten the market in each of the last five years, for example, it doesn’t mean he won’t underperform going forward.

The fact is there isn’t a fund manager on the planet who has never had a bad year, and it’s normal for professional managers to lose money from time to time, just as long as they make more than they lose and they win more often than they lose.

The question is, in the long run have they justified their management fees (which are sometimes topped up with performance fees), and if not should you ‘fire’ them, or in practical terms sell your investment?

WHY FEES VARY

The issue of fees is a particularly thorny one since as we said at the outset investors can access not just the UK stock market but the entire global market and a plethora of thematic funds for a pittance through passively-managed tracker funds such as an exchange-traded funds, also known as an ETF.

No manager is going to be able to charge much for a ‘plain vanilla’ fund which more or less replicates an index, but where they can demonstrate they are adding value with a specialist strategy investors are likely to be prepared to pay more.

Another thing to take into consideration is fund size: if a fund is small, it may need to charge higher management fees to cover its costs while in theory the bigger the fund the less it needs to charge.

As the costs of running a fund or trust are typically fixed, once it starts to grow each additional pound of assets means more fees which drop straight to the bottom line.

Some firms have shared the benefit with their investors by cutting fees when they reach a certain level of assets, but others have managed to retain relatively high fees.

Our view is that unless a manager shows they can consistently beat their benchmark and the competition over a long period of time, they probably shouldn’t be charging high fees.

If they have some ‘special sauce’, however, which allows them to beat the market on a regular basis and by a handsome margin, then they are probably worth their salt.

OUR RESEARCH

We have looked at eight popular investment trusts with ongoing charges of between 2% and 3% to see which ones we believe can justify their fees and which should probably have a rethink.

In our analysis we have excluded VCTs (venture capital trusts) and REITs (real estate investment trusts) as their fee structure can be somewhat convoluted.

It has to be said most can hold their head up when it comes to performance meaning the high fees actually represent value for money.

A MIXED BUNCH

Top of the pile is Bill Ackman’s hedge fund Pershing Square Holdings (PSH), which charges a basic 1.5% fee on assets under management and a performance fee of 20% of the increase in net asset value after the management fee and other losses have been deducted.

RUN PERSHING CHART

Ackman, a devotee of the Warren Buffett school of investing, typically owns a concentrated portfolio of less than a dozen names where detailed knowledge of each of the holdings ‘provides a better opportunity to deliver superior risk-adjusted returns’ compared with a large portfolio of lesser-known stocks.

Given his long-term track record, we would argue he is worth the money, but a regular investment rather might be a better strategy than buying into the fund all in one go.

Energy and power-focused trust Riverstone Energy (RSE) is clearly a binary bet on rising commodity prices and the dollar, both of which have worked to its advantage this year, but its longer-term performance is far from impressive.

Rather like playing the triangle in the orchestra, this trust is all about timing – miss the moment and you can forget it.

Interestingly, Geiger Counter (GCL), which is a single bet on the exploration, development and production of uranium for the nuclear power industry, has been a cracking performer over five years.

Given the renewed interest in locally produced nuclear power as a way of weaning the global economy off imported energy, we suspect the trust will continue to reward investors for some time to come.

Specialist fund Vietnam Holdings (VNH) is also a unitary bet and one that paid off nicely over the last five years as the country has grown faster than the Asia-Pacific region due to strong economic drivers.

If we go into a global recession, Vietnam is likely to be less affected than many other emerging markets, but the trust could still undershoot at which point it would be worth buying for a rebound.

BH Macro (BHMG), which we recently profiled, has an impressive track record, as does private equity trust Oakley Capital Investments (OCI), and both would seem to deserve their place in a well-diversified portfolio.

On the other hand, Asia-focused strategic investment firm Symphony International (SIHL) hasn’t done investors any favours over five years and while its one-year performance is reasonable it is still some way below its pre-pandemic price. The way the trust was sold off in early 2020 suggests it is seen as high on the risk spectrum.

RUN HONEYCOMB CHART

The trust which would seem to justify its fees the least in our table is Honeycomb (HONY), which invests in credit assets originated by non-bank lenders and ‘other originators of specialist lending assets’, mainly in the UK.

Unlike VCP Specialty Lending (VSL), which provides asset-backed financing directly, Honeycomb invests indirectly by buying loans and has large exposure to the property sector and small businesses, a strategy which has seen its shares underperform both short and longterm.

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