What we're looking for
This week features Round Two of a series on mutual fund families you may not have heard of, but are worth knowing about. The first round was published Sept. 28-Oct. 1 and it's archived here: http://tgam.ca/u1e.
Our screen
Today's fund company is EdgePoint Investment Group Inc., a small firm that is just reaching its second anniversary.
The funds presented here are ranked by assets. To assess their performance, we've presented their quartile rankings over various periods. Quartiles divide funds in a category into four groupings - a ranking in the first and second quartiles is what you want to see as an investor.
What we found
EdgePoint funds are too new to have much of a track record, a point that ordinarily would exclude them from inclusion here. You simply don't buy into a brand new fund company unless you have some strong evidence that the people running things know their stuff.
EdgePoint is run by people who used to be associated with the Trimark family of funds. EdgePoint's co-CEOs are Tye Bousada and Geoff MacDonald, both of whom were former Trimark fund managers. Financial backing to create EdgePoint came from Robert Krembil, who helped build Trimark into one of the country's largest fund companies before the 2000 sale to Invesco Ltd.
EdgePoint was drawn to my attention by an investment adviser who was impressed with the firm's strong focus on investors. He cited the fact that there are no options to buy these funds with a deferred sales charge, zero marketing frills and a policy of principals at the firm investing in their funds alongside clients. In fact, EdgePoint employees are the single biggest group of investors in the company's funds. Another point to like is a company creed that says investment results, not asset growth, will be used to measure success.
The most recently reported management expense (MER) numbers for EdgePoint funds are shown here. These fees are not low, but the company has been reducing costs as it builds assets and is committed to doing more of that.