Groupama AM announces the soft closure of its Groupama Avenir Euro fund

Due to its success, the Groupama Avenir Euro fund is being “soft” closed,: in other words, in order to limit the subscription inflows and to protect the investment strategy, a subscription fee of 10% maximum will henceforth be imposed on all new investors¹.

Groupama Avenir Euro² is a Eurozone small and mid cap mutual fund. Its minimum market exposure to equity stocks is 75%. Founded on a stock selection approach, the fund invests exclusively in companies that are judged to have an economic model that will create value for the fund’s shareholders over the long term, thanks to the positioning of these companies on growth markets and their industrial strategies being assessed as promising.

“Launched in 1994, this fund has seen a major inflow of subscriptions over the last four years since coming under the management of Cyrille Carrière, Deputy Head of Equities and Convertibles. Its total assets under management increased from 75 million euros in 2012 to 1.1 billion euros today. This significant inflow is testimony to the management model developed by Cyrille Carrière, who applies a pure stock-picking approach,” comments Jean-Marie Catala, Deputy CEO of Groupama Asset Management.

Continuity in investment strategy

Groupama Asset Management wished to impose partial limits on subscriptions to this fund, not only to protect the interests of the existing shareholders but also to be able to continue actively developing its investment strategy by means of a second vehicle. The aim of this soft closure is to ensure responsible management of the fund’s capacities and to continue to deliver a high level of performance.

Anticipating this success, almost two years ago, Groupama Asset Management launched the fund G Fund Avenir Europe³ (ISIN: LU0675296932 – Class: ICeur), which is managed by the same team.

The stock selection process of this second fund is identical to that of Groupama Avenir Euro, but the investment universe has been expanded to cover the whole of Europe. This means that the management team can, in particular, invest in small and mid caps in the UK, the Nordic countries or Switzerland.

“Our decision to conceive this second investment solution relatively early, with the capability to welcome new subscriptions, is directly aligned with the close tailored relationship that we maintain with our institutional customers. We wish to continue meeting their expectations after this soft closure by offering them an investment strategy that is similar but now extended to the whole of Europe”, explains Jean-Marie Catala.

“Faced with increasing uncertainties of all kinds on the markets, we remain convinced that small and mid caps will continue to benefit from powerful structural advantages. The identification of sustainable and efficient business models in this investment universe and the resulting stock selection provide us with a precious source of alpha⁴says Pierre-Alexis Dumont, Head of Equities and Convertibles Management.

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¹ Every new investor who is not already a shareholder of the mutual fund.

² The investment strategy implemented by Groupama Avenir Euro has won numerous awards and accolades from professionals in the world of finance:

-“Corbeilles d’argent” from French magazine “Mieux Vivre Votre Argent” 2016: among the funds promoted by Groupama Banque, a score of 20/20 was awarded to Groupama Avenir Euro for its 1-year and 5-year performance.

– 6 Lipper Fund Awards 2016: Best performer in the 3 and 5-year “Equity Eurozone Small and Mid Caps” category in Europe, France and Switzerland for the period 2011-2015

-6 Lipper Fund Awards 2015: Best performer in the 3 and 5-year “Equity Eurozone Small and Mid Caps” category in Europe, France and Switzerland for the period 2010-2014

Groupama Avenir Euro was awarded 5 stars by Morningstar in the Eurozone Mid Cap Equity category.  

The 1, 3 and 5-year performance levels of the fund were 19.76%, 76.92% and 180.95% respectively on 30 September 2016 Part (C).

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance

The fund is exposed to the following main risks: capital loss risk, stocks risk, and liquidity risk

³ Fund not yet marketed in France. Fund in the course of registration with AMF, the French Financial Markets Regulator

⁴ Alpha is a measure of the ability of a manager to create value for clients by being able to detect bonds or stocks that yield better returns over a given period than would normally be expected given their level of risk.

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> Soft closure Groupama Avenir Euro Regulatory information on the Groupama Avenir Euro- IC fund

ISIN code	FR0000990038
AMF Classification	Equity in the countries of the Eurozone
Legal status	Mutual fund (“FCP”) under French law
Reference indicator	MSCI EMU Small Caps closing (net dividends reinvested)
Type of investment fund	UCITS
Capitalization/ Distribution	C
Bloomberg code	GPAVEUM FP
Total net assets	1077 million € on 30/09/2016
NAV valuation period	Daily
Subscriptions / redemptions	Every working day before 11 am – NAV unknown – Settlement D+3
Maximum management fees (%)	Fixed: 1.6 Variable: None
Maximum entry charge (%)	Not paid into the UCITS: 10 Paid into the UCITS: None
Redemption charge (%)	Paid into the UCITS: None Not paid into the UCITS: None
Transaction commission	Yes
Custodian bank	CACEIS BANK France

 

Regulatory information on the Groupama G Fund Avenir Euro- IC eur

ISIN code	LU0675296932
AMF Classification	Other
Legal status	Compartment of open-end investment fund (“SICAV”) under the law of Luxembourg
Reference indicator	MSCI Europe Small Caps Euro (net dividends reinvested)
Type of investment fund	UCITS
Capitalization/ Distribution	C
Bloomberg code	GFESMIC LX
Total net assets	90.2 million € on 30/09/2016
NAV valuation period	Daily
Subscriptions / redemptions	Every working day before 12 noon – NAV unknown – Settlement D+3
Maximum management fees (%)	Fixed: 0.90 Administrative: 0.30 Variable: 20% of outperform net of costs compared to the reference index MSCI EUROPE Small Cap reinvested net dividends
Maximum entry charge (%)	Not paid into the UCITS: 4 Paid into the UCITS:  None
Redemption charge (%)	Paid into the UCITS: None Not paid into the UCITS: None
Transaction commission	Yes
Custodian bank	CACEIS BANK Luxembourg

This document is for information purposes only.

Groupama Asset Management and its subsidiaries are not liable for any modification, distortion or forgery of this document.

Before investing, each investor must read the prospectus or the Key Investor Information Document (KIID) of the UCITS. These documents and other periodical documents can be obtained free of charge on request from Groupama AM or on our website www.groupama-am.fr

This non-contractual document does not, under any circumstances, constitute a recommendation, request for offers, an offer to buy or sell or an arbitrage offer, and may in no case be interpreted as such.

The commercial teams of Groupama Asset Management and its subsidiaries are at your service if you wish a personal financial recommendation.