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The March edition mentions the Huber small cap value fund is close to closing, but according to the phone rep, there's no info/indication of any coming closing, so I wonder how did the MFO get the conclusion/prediction?
I talk pretty regularly to fund folks - managers, media reps, executives. They occasionally say interesting things which might be off-the-record. In that case, I always try to check on what I'm allowed to attribute to them in public. Some folks made a comment about capacity and I asked what I could say in public. Here's their reply:
“Effectively managing capacity of our strategies is one of the core tenets at Huber Capital Management, and we believe it is important in both small and large cap. Our small cap strategy has a capacity of approximately $1 billion in assets and our large cap/equity income strategy has a capacity of between $10 - $15 billion. As of 2/22/13, small cap strategy assets were over $810 mm and large cap/equity income strategy assets were over $1 billion. We are committed to closing our strategies in such a way as to maintain our ability to effectuate our process on behalf of investors who have been with us the longest.”
I was also interested in Huber Small Cap (HUSIX) as I am establishing positions in my ROTH of funds I like for that eventual transfer of IRA's and 401 monies. Before you buy (HUSIX) I would look at 2 other funds that are profiled by Mr. Snowball. They are Vulcan Value Partners Small (VVPSX) and Southern Small Cap (SSSFX). I like the Vulcan fund over the other two mentioned because of the lower E.R. compared with (HUSIX) and it's higher alpha and it's lower deviation over the last 3 years in a comparision. All three look good in a category with few outstanding open funds.
The (VVPSX) website has many news articles about the fund and the manager.
VVPSX is actually interesting to me. Thanks for bringing that up. I am actually considering it as an alternative to ARIVX which I recently sold down to a token.
I like the fund has a very reasonable P/E of 14 at the moment. Very decent valuation.
I like its 3 year up/down capture ratio, lower std. dev, low beta, high alpha, sharpe and sortino.
The fund has only 28 holdings. It is a concentrated portfolio and significantly so for a small cap fund but it seems like manager caps the exposure to any single issue to 5%.
ER=1.50% is a bit on the high side for a domestic fund. But right now, I checked M* Fees tab for this fund and see that ER has been capped to 1.25% until August 2013 and assuming that they renew ER waiver after that, 1.25% is acceptable for an actively managed US SmallCap fund.
Regarding the track record of Manager, M* says: "Prior to founding Vulcan in 2007, Mr. Fitzpatrick was a principal and portfolio manager at Southeastern Asset Management from 1990 to 2007." That is good that he has been managing money for a while.
"C.T. Fitzpatrick founded Vulcan Value Partners in 2007 to manage his personal capital. Since inception, all four strategies have peer rankings in the top 1% of value managers in their respective categories."
The about, philosophy and letters sections of the web site provide good amount of information.
Thanks for mentioning the Vulcan fund. Yes, I noticed it in the MFO and am considering it together with the Huber. It seems the Vulcan historically is not very tax efficient, so I may have it in tax deferred account. Huber looks good tax-wise. But future tax implication is hardly to know?
Comments
I talk pretty regularly to fund folks - managers, media reps, executives. They occasionally say interesting things which might be off-the-record. In that case, I always try to check on what I'm allowed to attribute to them in public. Some folks made a comment about capacity and I asked what I could say in public. Here's their reply:
“Effectively managing capacity of our strategies is one of the core tenets at Huber Capital Management, and we believe it is important in both small and large cap. Our small cap strategy has a capacity of approximately $1 billion in assets and our large cap/equity income strategy has a capacity of between $10 - $15 billion. As of 2/22/13, small cap strategy assets were over $810 mm and large cap/equity income strategy assets were over $1 billion. We are committed to closing our strategies in such a way as to maintain our ability to effectuate our process on behalf of investors who have been with us the longest.”
For what it's worth,
David
I was also interested in Huber Small Cap (HUSIX) as I am establishing positions in my ROTH of funds I like for that eventual transfer of IRA's and 401 monies. Before you buy (HUSIX) I would look at 2 other funds that are profiled by Mr. Snowball. They are Vulcan Value Partners Small (VVPSX) and Southern Small Cap (SSSFX). I like the Vulcan fund over the other two mentioned because of the lower E.R. compared with (HUSIX) and it's higher alpha and it's lower deviation over the last 3 years in a comparision. All three look good in a category with few outstanding open funds.
The (VVPSX) website has many news articles about the fund and the manager.
Art
VVPSX is actually interesting to me. Thanks for bringing that up. I am actually considering it as an alternative to ARIVX which I recently sold down to a token.
I like the fund has a very reasonable P/E of 14 at the moment. Very decent valuation.
I like its 3 year up/down capture ratio, lower std. dev, low beta, high alpha, sharpe and sortino.
The fund has only 28 holdings. It is a concentrated portfolio and significantly so for a small cap fund but it seems like manager caps the exposure to any single issue to 5%.
ER=1.50% is a bit on the high side for a domestic fund. But right now, I checked M* Fees tab for this fund and see that ER has been capped to 1.25% until August 2013 and assuming that they renew ER waiver after that, 1.25% is acceptable for an actively managed US SmallCap fund.
Regarding the track record of Manager, M* says: "Prior to founding Vulcan in 2007, Mr. Fitzpatrick was a principal and portfolio manager at Southeastern Asset Management from 1990 to 2007." That is good that he has been managing money for a while.
Here is the fund site: http://www.vulcanvaluepartners.com
Here is a quote from web site:
"C.T. Fitzpatrick founded Vulcan Value Partners in 2007 to manage his personal capital. Since inception, all four strategies have peer rankings in the top 1% of value managers in their respective categories."
The about, philosophy and letters sections of the web site provide good amount of information.
Here is David's profile of the fund.
http://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2011/04/vulcan-value-partners-small-cap-fund-vvpsx/
For some reason I did not pay enough attention to it back then. Maybe I found it too expensive and too new and passed over it without much thought.
Art
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