e-fundresearch: Mr Philippe Chaumel, you are the fund manager of the R Conviction Euro fund (ISIN:FR0010187898). Since when are your responsible for the fund management?
Chaumel: Since the inception of the fund in May 2005.
e-fundresearch: Which benchmark do you adhere to?
Chaumel: The reference index is the Euro Stoxx ® gross index
e-fundresearch: Are you also responsible for other funds at the moment?
Chaumel: Yes. I am responsible together with Didier Bouviginies of the diversified strategy and the European large caps equity strategy.
e-fundresearch: Regarding the performance: which performance did you achieve since the beginning of the year and in the years 2006-2010? Absolutely and relatively to the relevant benchmark?
Chaumel: Over the past 5 years, the fund R Conviction Euro has generated a net outperformance of 15.74% in comparison to its index.
e-fundresearch: How content are you with your own performance in the last years and this year?
Chaumel: Within our Eurozone large cap equity management, the portfolio managers follow a conviction management, independent from the benchmarks and mostly contrarian. Then, in case of periods of strong excess market, as we are currently facing since last summer, the fund can underperform its benchmark. Moreover we tend to anticipate too early the trend and to outperform temporarily in economic downturn phase.
Yet, the management of R Conviction Euro has well illustrated its ability to generate alpha in various market environments, with strong outperformance in comparison to indexes, in bull markets, as well as in bear markets.
e-fundresearch: How are you able to deliver added value for your investors with your performance?
Chaumel: Rothschild & Cie Gestion has developed an active and conviction-based management which objective is to strongly outperform market’s indices on a long term basis. Our expertise relies on an in-depth fundamental analysis of companies, while integrating a top-down approach in order to control macro-economic bias in the portfolio construction.
e-fundresearch: How long have you been a fund manager already?
Chaumel: I have been a portfolio manager since I joined Rothschild & Cie Gestion in February 2003.
e-fundresearch: What kind of capital market situation do we have at the moment? How do you act in this environment?
Chaumel: After much procrastination, various announcement effects and surprising political developments, media coverage of the euro-zone crisis has reached a boiling point. Questions concerning the handling of this crisis, which has had a significant impact on global equity prices and market volatility, are still in the spotlight. In this environment it is difficult to see clearly even a few days ahead and try to anticipate what markets will do over the near term.
e-fundresearch: What are the special challenges in this environment?
Chaumel: We believe it is more useful to look beyond the current environment and examine the economic fundamentals that have enabled both European and US equity markets to rebound rather vigorously, by 10% to 15% from their recent lows.
e-fundresearch: Thank you for the interview!
