Fatima Khizou: I am here today to talk about a new US Equity fund which made it recently to our coverage, and to which we awarded our highest Morningstar Analyst Rating.
There is a very small number of excellent US offerings available to European investors, so it is pleasing to see a new addition in this space. PGIM Jennison US Growth was launched in October 2016 and while this is a short period to receive a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Gold, the strategy is not unknown to us. This fund mirrors the US domiciled Prudential Jennison Growth fund, which has a longer track record going back to 1999.
This strategy has many positive attributes and scores highly on all our 5ps. Its management team is very experienced and long tenured and is made up of seven portfolio managers including Jennison’s founder Sig Segalas who has run the same strategy for nearly three decades. We also think highly of the resources available to the managers. The analyst ranks at Jennison and dedicated to this strategy are also broad, deep and with high level of experience.
The investment approach employed by the team to identify companies that it believes have strong runways for growth over a multiyear horizon is sound and has been consistent through time. In building the portfolio, the managers pay little attention to the sector weightings of their benchmark. This purely bottom-up approach can result in substantial sector bets which can lead to short term surges and drags, but over longer-term periods results have been outstanding.
Another key competitive advantage here is the price which is also one the 5ps we assess. Overall, we think this US large-cap growth fund is a standout for investor looking to gain exposure to the US equity market.
