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
Regards,
Ted
David
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?
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
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.
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.