Active U.K. equity money managers turned around their performance in the year ended June 30, with 82% of strategies topping their benchmark, said S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Its midyear 2015 Europe S&P Indices Versus Active Funds scorecard showed that these sterling-based strategies outperformed the S&P U.K. Broad Market index for the year, but suffered over longer periods of time.
Over the five years ended June 30, just 48% outperformed the benchmark, and that figure fell further, to 27%, over 10 years.
U.K. large and midcap equity money managers fared particularly well, with 92% of these strategies outperforming the S&P U.K. LargeMidCap index over the one-year period. Over the five years, this fell to 54%, and over 10 years just 27% of these strategies topped the benchmark.
However, it was different story for actively managed U.S. equity funds. Just 28% of sterling-denominated active U.S. equity strategies outperformed the S&P 500 over the year ended June 30, dropping to 9% over five years, but increasing to 11% over 10 years.
Managers of sterling-denominated active emerging markets strategies also found it difficult to outperform the S&P International Finance Corp. composite indexes, with 21% outperforming for the one-year period. Over five years, this figure dropped to 22%, and over 10 years, it fell to 14%.
S&P DJI also looked at strategy survivorship, finding that over 10 years, 56% of sterling-denominated U.K. equity strategies disappeared or were merged into other strategies. Almost 60% of U.K. large-cap and midcap equity strategies failed to survive over 10 years; and 53% of U.S. equity strategies did not make their 10-year anniversaries.
Emerging markets strategies, however, tended to do better, with around 27% of these sterling-based strategies disappearing over the decade ended June 30.