By SIMON MOORE 09/02/2010
Schroders have made the decision to “soft close” their Schroder US Smaller Companies to try to slow down / stop fund inflows. This means that investors can still buy into the fund, but will now have to pay the full front-end fee (ie 5.25% initial charge) to do so. This affects our rating of the fund.
Fund manager Jenny Jones has more than 12 years’ track record in the US smaller companies sector, with a 90% MRI and 0.34% average monthly outperformance. So we continue to rate her ability as a fund manager, but the initial charge puts us off recommending this fund to clients.
Rating reduced from 5 stars to 2 stars. We are retaining our 3 star rating on Jones’ Schroder US Mid Cap fund, which investors can still access at a 0% initial charge.