Managed Funds Your thoughts on Maximiser by Freeman Fox

Currently Peter Spann is flying around promoting his new Maximiser Fund which is a collection of managed funds investing in Freeman Foxs Methodology and around the emerging market theme.

They hand pick the best funds and sectors they believe will outperform the market over the medium to long term.

Basically its a portofolio in a box managed by freeman fox and allows for regular contributions.

I was wondering what people here thing of this fund. Is it worth the fee's, and do you think freeman fox will be able to outperform the market.

I like the idea you don't need a individual plan drawn up for you and this saves the $3000 plan fee. I also like how you can contribute on a regular basis and average your way into the market and leave your managed fund selection to people who have a little more knowledge than I.

Freeman Fox - MAXIMISERâ„¢

One thing I don't like is the 3% entry fee.

Another feature is the profit lock in.. every time a 20% growth is reached, its locked in.

 

How about his Emerging Markets fund as well?

I thought about both but never moved forward...

FXI is looking cheap though

 

Yeh looks like the Emergant fund will be the one which higher likely returns. The maximizer is a more broad growth fund.

 

Are you sure your not working for this guy?

As a financial planner I've never heard of this freeman fox or Peter Spann. Seems to me Peter Spann is a financial planner with his own license who considers himself to be a fund manager of fund managers...

Fees look really high for what they are offering,

not negotiable contribution fee of 3.30%, base admin fee of 1.49% + MER of up to 2.20%.

Why wouldn't you just go see a financial planner? Their plan fees would be les than the contribution fee of 3.3%, the products they would recommend would have lower fees and you would get personalised advice.

On a $50,000 investment a 3.3% contribution will cost you $1,650. I pretty much guarantee that you could get professional advice for less than that for purely "investment only advice".

personally I rather stick my money in a high growth diversified option offered by one of the big boys, it would cost less and over the long term would perform a lot better

 

I can assuse you I don't work for him! I have attended their investor updates, and this last round they have promoted this fund.

I was also thinking the fee's look pritty big. I couldn't work out the MER, so he is charging 1.5% plus the fund MER? That is very large.

Currently I have my money invested in a australian share fund, and am wondering if I would be better off 'diversifying' into something like this.

I spoke to them today, and the profit lock in's don't apply to the normal version of this fund, only the 100% loan one. Plus I can't use my margin lender, but have to use LE to gear it, who charge 40 points more than I pay in interest.

I also question if its necessary to diversfy so much, shouldn't 2-4 good managed funds be enough? prehaps Ozzie shares, property and asian exposure? I get the impression freeman fox make it more complex than it needs to be.

 

For a high growth, investor which i assume you are, most financial planning dealerships will recommend an investment split of around 40-45% Aussie shares, 40-45% Int shares & 0-10% Aust prop for a well diversified portfolio. this won't necessarily get the highest returns but it should limit your downside.

this level of diversification can be achieve with a single multi-manager diversified fund (offered by every fund manager around) or with a combination of between 5-10 well selected single sector funds

 

so what about global property, infrastructure , resources, ASIA, small caps etc?

Just having 40 australian shares, 40% inter shares, and 10% other isn't a very exciting mix.

 

what are you holding at present Sim? Did you exit many of your funds due to the dowturn in the market? I would assume your funds would have fallen below their 200 day moving average causing you to sell up.

prehaps its a good time now to re-enter some of them?

 

Thanks for sharing Sim...

 

Thanks Sim. I'm thinking of staying in my one fund which invests in ozzie shares, and keep on making regular contributions into my offset account. I need to build up a cash buffer now since I spent most of my cash on my IP.. which I plan to make a PPOR in a couple years time.. so I think its a good idea to lower the debt to make it more managable while I can.