| Date | September 09, 2003 |
| Time | 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM |
| Station | CNNfn National |
| Location | Network |
| Program | Money Gang |
ALI VELSHI, co-host:
Today Mutual Fundamental is a fund for anyone who wants to invest overseas. There is no specific geographical region that this fund focuses on, but its biggest weightings are in Japan and Britain.
PAT KIERNAN, co-host:
It's the UMB Scout Worldwide Fund; up 19 percent over the past year, beating its benchmark up, which is up about 14 percent. For more on the fund, we're join by its manager James Moffett of Scout Investment Advisors. [See the Fund's latest performance]
James, welcome to the program.
Mr. JAMES MOFFETT (Scout Investment Advisors, UMB Scout Worldwide Fund): Howdy. Happy to be here.
KIERNAN: Good to have you with us. Tell us about the fund and where you do--what sort of geographic decisions do you make? Are you looking at where the best opportunities are at any particular time and increasing the weighting there?
Mr. MOFFETT: Well, the basic approach of the fund is to take a balanced portfolio around the world. As you noted, we're a--have heavy weightings in UK and Japan, but those are substantially less than the usual index in the business, which is the EFA. We've taken that money and repositioned in other places like Canada and Brazil. [WorldWide Fund Fact Sheet]
VELSHI: Let's take a look at--you have one US stock, which is interesting. It's AFLAC.* And AFLAC has increasingly become a company that's doing business in Japan.
Mr. MOFFETT: It's done business in Japan for a long time. It's the largest company in Japan in the supplemental health insurance. It covers a hole in their insurance schemes. And it's about 70 percent of AFLAC's business.
I know we think of AFLAC as the--as American as a duck, but--
KIERNAN: I want to talk to you about some of the names you're investing in. Some of them are ADRs here; people can easily invest in if they have a US brokerage account. AmBev,* the Brazilian beer company is one of them.
Mr. MOFFETT: Right. AmBev we liked. It's about 70 percent of the Brazilian beer market. One of the fastest growing in the world. And, in fact, it's like the third largest beer market, and short on the heels of the Germans in beer drinking.
VELSHI: A British company you like--you like Smith & Nephew,* a name that doesn't reflect what this company does.
Mr. MOFFETT: Right. They're a medical equipment business. They sell artificial hips and knees. They--wound management products. They're kind of a play on all of us getting older and needing new parts.
KIERNAN: And Magna,* the Canadian auto parts company, ticker symbol MGA is another one that you like. Auto industry is tough to get a read on lately because the final demand, the consumer level, is driven so much by these incentives. You think that an auto parts supply like Magna is a better way to play that market?
Mr. MOFFETT: That's our approach. I mean, we only have a little shares of Toyota.* But our main exposure is in Magna because as long as the companies keep selling more parts, that ought to be good for them. And they do business with all of the major American and European manufacturers.
VELSHI: Your turnover on this fund is quite low. Is that designed to be tax efficient, or is it because you buy and you hold these stocks?
Mr. MOFFETT: It's both. It's not designed to be tax efficient, but it works out that way. It's basically a longer term approach, buy and hold; the old cliche of ride your winners and cut your losers. As long as something keeps working for us, we keep it.
KIERNAN: Jim, glad you could talk to us about the fund today. We appreciate it.
Mr. MOFFETT: It's a pleasure. Good to see you.
KIERNAN: James Moffett is the portfolio manager of the UMB Scout Worldwide Fund at Scout Investment Advisers.
|
