What is the approximate quantitative / qualitative split in S&P’s fund research methodology?
Our approach is 100% qualitative but we use quantitative research as an analytical tool. There are 25,000 funds in the ex-US mutual fund universe. We put funds into sectors, segments, buckets or whatever you want to call them to enable the universe to go down to a level we can cope with. We cover over 1100 funds now, the majority of the good funds in the marketplace. Our quantitative screen reduces the universe to 15% or 20%. Once a fund is eligible to be covered, we do prep work so that we get the best out of the fund manager in a short space of time. We send in two analysts to meet the manager. Ideally, we want someone who has met them the year before as well as a fresh face. We interview the manager and follow up on any interesting points to help us understand their style, risk controls, performance and so on. We do not have any in-house style bias, we favour consistency of people and process. We are essentially trying to cut through everything and make the decision as to whether [a
