Our confidence in Skagen Kon-Tiki has slightly diminished, but we continue to consider it a strong option for investors looking for diversified emerging-markets exposure.
This fund’s main strength lies in its experienced team, which has been led by Kristoffer Stensrud since inception in 2002. Stensrud has more than 30 years of experience as portfolio manager and is a major shareholder in Skagen. We also think highly of the team’s co-leader, Knut Harald Nilsson, who has been here for a decade, and its three comanagers, who are all in charge of a part of the portfolio. Overall, Skagen has a strong investment culture and a long-term focus, which helps the team execute its contrarian approach, which has produced top-decile results in the trailing 10 years through the end of June 2016.
While the team has an edge in its distinctive strategy of looking for cheap companies that are underresearched or out of favour, we believe the recent changes in portfolio construction may result in a different return profile going forward. In the context of massive outflows and underperformance, the team has cut sharply the tail of the portfolio, resulting in the number of holdings dropping from 100 in March 2015 to 65 at the end of May 2016--levels unseen at the fund since 2005. As a result, the portfolio’s exposure to large caps is flirting with its highest levels of the past 10 years. We acknowledge that this may help the fund in difficult markets, but the small positions in the tail have historically been large contributors in up markets. Besides, the team has faced more difficulties recently in producing value-added through stock-picking outside of its beloved consumer cyclicals sector. It must be said, though, that the team has clearly been penalised, with its value style being out of favour since 2011.
All told, we still think this fund is a great option with a proven team at the helm, but our confidence about its ability to replicate its extraordinary past success has dropped one notch. We are therefore lowering the fund's Morningstar Analyst Rating to Silver.
