In the subsequent restructure, the UK Oeic will be shut down while the two Luxembourg-based Sicavs will be handed to Mark Beveridge, global head of Axa Framlington who joined in 2009 and has worked alongside Firmin-Didot on the three funds.
The company is keen to stress that it is only the £5.9m Axa Framlington Talents Fund that is closing. In a letter to investors, the firm said: “It is no longer has sufficient assets under management to be managed in an economical way” and so will close on29 October.
The firm emphasised the fund’s closure was not related to Firmin-Didot’s departure but to its lack of assets.
Looking at its performance, Firmin-Didot’s Oeic lost 33.1% in the 12 months to the end of June having also lost money in the year to date and the past six months. Looking further out, it returned 0.6% in the past three years though lost 33.4% in the past five years.
It has been fourth quartile over each of these time frames.
The two remaining propositions, the catchily-named Axa World Fund Framlington Talents Global and Axa World Fund Framlington Emerging Markets Talents funds, are both Sicavs and will be managed by Beveridge with the direct support of two analysts and a portfolio engineer.
The performance of the €76m Emerging Markets Sicav has also struggled, underperforming its benchmark, the MSCI Emerging Markets Total Return Net index, over most time periods, short and long-term, giving investors at launch in May 2005 8.3% compared to 75.5% for the index.
Meanwhile, the €134m Talents Global fund has fared better though still short of its benchmark, the MSCI World Total Return Net index, over most time periods yet still managing to return 9% since its launch in April 2004 compared to 7.8% for the index.
