Chelsea's hidden gems

We take fund research very seriously at Chelsea. Our sole goal is to find the best funds on the market for our clients and, over the past 14 years since we established our Core Selection and Selection lists, we have been very successful. Looking back at the funds we have chosen for the Core Selection in that time, they have beaten the IA Flexible benchmark by more than 62%*. Click here to read more about our research.

We've recently added three more hidden gems to our Selection list: Dodge & Cox US Stock, Goldman Sachs India Equity Portfolio and Livingbridge Wood Street Micro Cap Investment. We are calling them hidden gems, because they are not widely available to all investors in the UK as a number of our larger competitors have yet to add them to their fund-buying platforms. We think this is a real shame for their clients, but a real bonus for ours. Not only are we finding great funds for you, but we are actively working on your behalf to make sure they are added to the Chelsea FundStore.

Here’s a little more detail on each of these three funds:

Dodge & Cox US Stock
Dodge & Cox were founded in 1930 and are based in San Francisco. The company prides itself on its research-intensive approach. There are 23 industry analysts who pitch their stock ideas to an investment committee. Long-term fundamentals and valuations are key to stock selection. There are no quantitative screens in the process. There is no lead manager on the fund; the portfolio is constructed on a bottom-up basis by an investment committee made up of the most senior portfolio managers. The fund typically has a value bias and stocks are typically held for three to five years. The fund's huge size restricts it to investing in larger companies.

Goldman Sachs India Equity Portfolio
Goldman Sachs are a name many of us are familiar with, but their fund range is less well known to UK retail investors, as they have only just started making inroads into this market. This particular fund is run by Prashant Khemka, who is based in Singapore, but the rest of the team is based in Bombay and Prashant is in daily contact with them and spends a good 4-5 months in India each year. It is a multi-cap fund with a bias to mid and small-sized companies, which takes it higher up the risk scale, but performance has been consistent in both up and down markets.

Livingbridge Wood Street Micro Cap Investment
Livingbridge was founded in 1995. They run the range of highly regarded Baronsmead VCTs and are smaller company specialists. The quoted microcap investment fund has been run for five years with Livingbridge’s own money. It is only just in the process of being opened to other investors, following five years of strong performance. This fund is a very compelling proposition. Livingbridge are an experienced and extremely well resourced team with a strong track record. It is a benchmark unconstrained fund and they only focus on sectors they have expertise in. The fund is also very small and flexible. This is a risky fund. It is investing in micro caps and is very concentrated for a smaller companies fund (currently 38 names but this will probably increase).

*FEAnalytics 01/06/2001-14/08/2015