Interesting in a declining stock market, page-41

GQG probably remains misunderstood overall by the market at this stage.
As indicated by an article of Chanticleer today, all the listed fundies face headwinds like tepid earning growth, superannuation reform (pressuring fees) and the competition of passive funds.
GQG has been adapting for some time to such an environment, by keeping a low level of fee (almost 0 performance fee and low management fee overall).
They are also not much impacted by the pressure from superannuation fund as they have now a low exposure (probably not more than 4 bn, out of their 95 bn of FUM). A large part of their customer base remains in North America.

But the main point is probably their performance this year.
One of the reason why the fund management sector is doing so poorly recently is that a lot of fund managers explained that they could do well in period of weak stock market. The reality is proving that most of them were wrong.
GQG is a major exception with 2 of its 4 major strategies now showing a positive absolute performance YTD (in USD) : + 6.9 %* for their US equity strategy and + 3.8 %* for their global equity strategy.
That looks significant even vs the resistant Australian market (- 5.9 % YTD for ASX all ord).

Also interesting to see how they achieved such fund performances : it was not by taking an excessive amount of risks**.
Basically, they backed the right sectors, in particular the energy sector (and the tobacco sector) and avoided the tech sector.
Looking at some recent performance attribution for their global equity strategy, they have also good contribution from stock selection, inside each sector.

My understanding of Rajiv Jain (CEO and main fund manager of GQG) :
- we will try to participate when the market is increasing (but not necessarily outperform),
- and we will protect your capital when the market is decreasing.
A lot of fund managers say that, but few of them are able to do it.

The other major element of GQG's strategies.
Like every fund manager, they will get some of their bets wrong (like what happened at the beginning of the year with European banks and their bet on Russia), but they have shown over time a great ability to rapidly adjust their portfolios.

* both performances in USD.
** reminder : long only strategies, focused on big caps.