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Seafarer

Hey folks. Was hoping to get some advice. As you know, Seafarer is closing as of the end of the month. I have a position in the fund at Schwab. Unfortunately, Schwab tells me that they are currently in negotiations with Seafarer in regards to whether they will continue to sell the fund to existing shareholders. At this point, it is unclear whether they will do so. I want to continue to be able to add to this fund. I'm wondering if others have run into this issue and if you have any suggestions on what to do. thanks.

Comments

  • TedTed
    edited September 2016
    @MikeW: I'm reasonably certain that Schwab will continue to sell SFGIX to existing shareholders.
    Regards,
    Ted
  • Thanks Ted
  • I talked with TDAmeritrade and they didn't even know the Fund was closing...
  • Yeah the customer service folks don't know about it. You have to ask them to connect with the mutual fund analysts. It took me 3 days to get an answer from Schwab and that answer was inconclusive. I did call Seafarer and they told me I could transfer my holdings to them and continue to purchase the fund -- so that's an option.
  • Hasn't TD Ameritrade been in the dark about a few things recently. Weren't they the ones who were offering the Driehaus Frontier Emerging Markets fund with a low minimum or was it something else?
  • Yeah, they are not always on the ball.
  • LLJB
    Hasn't TD Ameritrade been in the dark about a few things recently. Weren't they the ones who were offering the Driehaus Frontier Emerging Markets fund with a low minimum or was it something else?
    About DRFRX, yes.
  • @ Mike W -- Go direct. Set up autoinvest. Better all-round
  • And, too, call Seafarer. They're really remarkably responsive and well-informed.

    David
  • Thanks folks for the feedback... Seafarer told me that I could transfer my account if Schwab won't continue to sell the fund
  • When you call Seafarer aren't you really calling ALPS, who does all the back office work for them and many others?

    I've had mixed experiences with ALPS although they're usually very nice. In some cases they are well-informed and even responsive when they don't have an answer right away. In others they are somewhat amazingly uninformed and even unable to logic their way through fairly simple stuff. Is that just the luck of the draw? Or is Seafarer, and maybe others too, picking the specific people who service their accounts so they end up with higher quality customer service?
  • Hmm. Good question ... I assumed I was talking with folks at Seafarer so I can't answer.
  • MikeW said:

    Hey folks. Was hoping to get some advice. As you know, Seafarer is closing as of the end of the month. I have a position in the fund at Schwab. Unfortunately, Schwab tells me that they are currently in negotiations with Seafarer in regards to whether they will continue to sell the fund to existing shareholders. At this point, it is unclear whether they will do so. I want to continue to be able to add to this fund. I'm wondering if others have run into this issue and if you have any suggestions on what to do. thanks.

    I have some information from a very reliable source at Seafarer. Per the prospectus they believe the fund will remain available for purchase at Schwab by existing shareholders after today. Contrary to what Schwab told MikeW, Seafarer has no on going negotiations with Schwab, nor are there any new agreements pending with Schwab.

    The only new aspect to Seafarer’s relationship with Schwab is that they recently requested that Schwab “soft close" the Fund according to the principles outlined in the Fund’s prospectus (as revised 8/31/16, and available at www.seafarerfunds.com/prospectus). Seafarer has worked with Schwab to implement the soft closure accordingly, and to the best of their knowledge, Schwab has agreed to comply with the intent of the prospectus.

    With all the above in mind, Seafarer said that every broker, dealer or platform may enact the soft closure differently, typically because of varying internal policies and technological limitations. Consequently, Schwab’s actual implementation of the soft closure is subject to some uncertainty. While Seafarer does not anticipate any material difficulties for Fund shareholders that custody with Schwab, they can not be certain that some shareholders will not encounter temporary frustrations, or even permanent restrictions. Seafarer will work with Schwab and other platforms to alleviate such problems and they can only ensure the soft closure will be implemented as intended for “direct” shareholders.

    My take on all of this is that if Schwab does not sell the fund to existing shareholders after today, the reason(s) for this rest with Schwab and not Seafarer.

    Mona





  • OT but related to Seafarer. How many people are trading or have in the past moved out some or all of Matthews Asia Growth and Income to Seafarer G&I? I currently have 1/3 Seafarer and 2/3 Matthews and wonder if making a move now (to 2/3 Seafarer or more) is to late? The Foster/Horrocks combo are my only dedicated EM positions.
  • I moved from MACSX to SFGIX a couple years ago. It made sense to me personally not to have 2 funds following similar agendas, especially when one of those funds (SFGIX) was using a larger geographic scope to accomplish that agenda. Just trending the 2 fund's returns for any time span pretty much proves that was the right move.

    But that said, I'm not a proponent of multiple funds in any cap-size or sector type fund. I believe many-of-the-same funds detract from total return. Might as well go with the index since you watered down the managers skills. But that's just me.

  • edited September 2016
    On the Matthews-Seafarer question, the chart shows MAPIX (AF's old fund) still outpointing SFGIX* since SFGIX's inception, +41.8% to +30.5%.

    Yes, they're different animals, but generally I've thought Foster appears to be good manager who's made a mistake with his long-running underweight to Asia (and at one point, before I stopped following the fund closely, some not-so-hot security selection in Latin America). The Asia underweight may seem slight, but over time, it's had to have some effect.

    Just another view ...

    * If the chart shows only Seafarer, as I think a direct link sometimes does, just add MAPIX to the chart to see the pattern.
  • The approach may be the same/similar, but you can't compare performance of two funds with opportunity sets that are substantially different. That has nothing to do with a manager's ability to truly add value.
  • Interesting points all. Thanks. Of note I am not really worrying about performance since both are actively managed and will be out of step with indexes and each other.
  • Thanks everyone for your inputs.
  • Returning to the original question, as of Oct. 2 Schwab's website indicates that SFGIX is "available to existing shareholders."
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