Muna Abu-Habsa: Twice a year we publish a list of funds that our manager research analysts are taking a closer look at and we call it Morningstar Prospects. It allows us to share with you what we believe are the most promising new ideas being explored by our analyst team, but which have yet to be fully covered by them. They are identified across equity, fixed-income, multi-asset and alternatives.
Prospect funds can fall into different categories, they can be funds that are run by managers we're familiar on other strategies, funds with unique processes that we think have sufficient merit to warrant further digging into, or just simply under the radar investments -- those hidden gems.
The EMEA & Asia Prospects List saw significant changes in the first half of 2018. We added 22 funds, removed 17 and graduated eight funds to full coverage, all of which earned positive Morningstar Analyst Ratings.
One of the funds that made the cut in the list is Waverton European Dividend Growth which our analysts think might be under the radar. Although portfolio manager Charles Glasse has managed the fund at Waverton since May 2016, but his strong track record on the strategy extends back further to the inception of the fund at 2CG in 2001. The portfolio combines steady growth companies with margin improvers and a few higher yielders alongside those, resulting in a balanced but high-conviction portfolio.
To give you another example, within global equities, the process used to run Investec Global Special Situations is one that our analysts have been familiar with for many years as it was originally established by Alistair Mundy, but it is now being applied by a new management duo, Steve Woolley and Alessandro Dicorrado, on a bigger, global opportunity set. Despite the brevity of their tenure, the managers have had a promising start with excellent stock selection despite value-investing continuing to face headwinds.
