Jon Tringale Title: Client Portfolio Manager Years with present firm: 4 Years in financial services: 11 Investment/asset class focus: International/Global Equities
Asset Management Firm: WCM Firm's headquarters: Laguna Beach, California Year firm was founded: 1976 Number of employees and/or partners: 51 employees, 28 of whom are owners Assets under management/advisement as of Dec. 31, 2018: $29.8 billion
WCM Investment Management has a long track record of outperforming the MSCI All Country World Index excluding the U.S., which it did by 8.25% in 2018, putting it in the top 3% of its peer group.
Envestnet says its high opinion of the Focused Growth International ADR Strategy is tied to "its differentiated investment process and impressive team culture," making it "a top option for investors looking for a concentrated, benchmark agnostic, aggressive global growth manager."
The portfolio team's aim is to identify and invest in companies with a strong competitive advantage over peers (i.e. an economic moat) and a trajectory for this competitive advantage. The portfolio — which is led by five managers — "has a large-cap bias as well as a quality and growth tilt and currently has roughly 14% invested in emerging markets," the Envestnet analysts explained. Also, its lower beta orientation boosted returns last year, which was a volatile one for international markets.
"We're all about generating excess return over time," said Jon Tringale, client portfolio manager. "We want to win the investment game, and we try and exploit asset classes where we see inefficiency in order to do that."
The global equity team includes 15 individuals. "We tend to think small teams work better, and there's a lot of academic evidence to suggest that it does," Tringale explained.
"We really believe that to win in the long run, the first objective you have to be able to meet is to protect capital well in down markets. The math just works," he said. "Every decision we make is really designed first and foremost to protect capital well."
