This poor relative performance has seen the manager fall behind his peer group composite over one, three and five years, although he is still ahead over 10.
Geffen currently runs 11 funds, including the recently launched Neptune Monthly Income fund. The only FE Alpha Manager who runs more is Paul Causer, with 13.
Of the eight that were launched at least five years ago, three are bottom-quartile performers over five years, while the remaining five are third quartile.
Over three years, five are bottom quartile, and four are bottom quartile over one year.
Performance and quartiles of funds over 5-yrs
| Name | 1yr (%) | Qtl | 3yr (%) | Qtl | 5yr (%) | Qtl |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neptune Global Alpha | 6.51 | 4 | 11.45 | 4 | -13.21 | 4 |
| Neptune Balanced | 7.2 | 4 | 18.4 | 2 | 7.85 | 3 |
| Neptune Global Equity | 2.85 | 4 | 5.42 | 4 | -14.36 | 4 |
| Neptune Global Max Alpha | 1.66 | 4 | 2.72 | 4 | -6.85 | 4 |
| Neptune China | 18.12 | 2 | 9.93 | 2 | 2.11 | 3 |
| Neptune Russia & Greater Russia | 4.06 | 3 | 1.5 | 3 | -13.88 | 3 |
| Neptune Income | 10.16 | 3 | 20.27 | 4 | 9.33 | 3 |
| Neptune Quarterly Income | 14.13 | 2 | 23.39 | 4 | 11.23 | 3 |
Source: FE Analytics
It should be noted that the Neptune Russia & Greater Russia fund sits in IMA Specialist, which makes comparison a little unfair given its huge variety of portfolios. The £360m fund has beaten its MSCI Russia Large Cap index over five years, but has fallen short over one and three.
The eight funds have combined assets under management (AUM) of £3.4bn.
In spite of their outperformance over 10 years, Geffen’s three largest portfolios – Neptune Balanced, Global Equity and Income – have been in the bottom quartile over either one, three or five years.
The £966.3m Neptune Income fund is third quartile over one and five years, but bottom quartile over three. Over five years, the fund has returned 9.33 per cent, underperforming its IMA UK Equity Income sector by around 4 percentage points.
Geffen’s £884.5m Neptune Global Equity fund has fared worse, sitting among the worst-performing funds in its IMA Global sector over one, three and five years, as well as over three and six months.
Over five years, the fund has lost 14.36 per cent and ranks 173rd out of 176 funds in IMA Global. The sector has delivered 10.19 per cent over the period.
Neptune Global Equity has underperformed its MSCI World benchmark by an even greater amount during this time.
Performance of fund vs sector and index over 5-yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Some commentators have pointed to the vast number of funds under the management of Geffen as a concern, but Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, says the underperformance issue stretches wider than the manager himself.
"Neptune’s performance across the board has dipped, apart from the Mid Cap fund," he said.
"They blend a style of top-down and bottom-up [management], but if they get some of their macro calls wrong and this leads them into the wrong sectors, then it doesn’t matter what stocks they’re choosing."
"It’s not so much that Geffen [is running too many funds] – Neptune has been getting its sectors wrong for a number of years."
Neptune currently has 18 managers running 38 funds between them in the IMA unit trust and OEIC universe. Geffen is either lead or co-manager on 11 of these.
Of the 22 with a long enough track record, 16 have underperformed their sector over five years. Five of these are bottom quartile, while 11 are third quartile.
Nineteen of the 28 funds with a long enough track record have underperformed over three years – 15 of which are bottom quartile over the period.
Hargreaves Lansdown’s Rob Morgan thinks that Neptune has too many funds overall, and performance has suffered as a result.
"We’re quite cynical about that," he said. "You’re better off having a smaller range of really good funds and focusing on those."
Morgan echoes McDermott’s concerns that Geffen has been making the wrong sector and regional calls for a significant period of time. He says the Global Equity fund in particular has suffered from an overexposure to emerging markets, namely China.
"Geffen has a strong bullish view on China and over the last year that’s been one of the worst places to be," he said. "I would expect that fund and Neptune funds in general to perform better when [sentiment changes] towards China."
Neptune was keen to point out that even though Geffen has taken charge of yet another fund in the form of Neptune Monthly Income, he is well supported by the firm’s extensive investment team.
"Robin will only be responsible for the management of one of the recently launched funds and will be supported in this by Neptune’s Income team, while also drawing on the wider global sector research of the entire investment team," said Richard Green, deputy managing director at Neptune.
"Neptune’s investment process is very much team-based: the analysis used across all Neptune funds is generated by the entire Neptune investment team working together and pooling their views and research for the benefit of the wider team – creating a strong support structure for Robin."
"At Neptune, we take a long-term view and are prepared to experience short-term volatility."
"Recent performance in the Global Equity fund has suffered as we are positioned for a rally in US and emerging market equities on the back of above-consensus global economic growth," he added.