US equities investor Felix Wintle has left Neptune after 14 years. Wintle took over management of the Neptune US Opportunities fund in 2005, and outperformed his category peers by some margin until 2011, but has more recently been plagued by underperformance. The fund has 10 year annualised returns of 8.6%, in line with the US Large-cap growth sector.
Morningstar fund analyst Fatima Zhizou said that the fund’s process was expected to lead to periods of underperformance but that recent returns had been disappointing. Morningstar analysts will be meeting with the new manager before making a decision on the rating.
Neptune has announced that Wintle will be succeeded immediately by James Hackman, who also runs the Neptune US Income fund. Patrick Close will become co-manager and Ali Unwin, manager of the Neptune Global Technology Fund will be named deputy fund manager.
The team will also be launching a Neptune US Mid Cap Fund later this year. Close has been running a US mid-cap mandate as part of the Neptune Balanced fund since December 2015. Neptune states that since launch this portfolio has returned 33% compared to the S&P 1000 index gain of 22%.
Both the US Opportunities fund and the new Mid-cap fund will be utilising a new screening tool developed by Hackman and Close, called CompoundEdge, looking to identify companies can generate unusually high returns on capital over an extended period of time.
Neptune chief executive Robin Geffen said, “The goal of outperforming the S&P 500 is a challenging one and requires consistent and accurate application of process to achieve it.”
“Over the past three years James and Patrick have put in hundreds of hours to arrive at what I believe to be a truly robust approach fit for the challenging markets of the next decade.”