DWS Invest German Equities FC

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|14/02/2024

by Natalia Wolfstetter
Resources remain decent, but the team running DWS Invest German Equities underwent several changes in 2023, which warrants a cautious stance, resulting in People and Process ratings of Average.

Marcus Poppe has taken over the reins of DWS Deutschland and sibling DWS Invest German Equities from long-standing manager Tim Albrecht in March 2023. Poppe has been with DWS since 2010, initially as an analyst covering German equities, followed by portfolio manager roles for DWS (ESG) Smart Industrials Technologies and DWS Global Value. In 2016, he was appointed deputy manager for DWS Top Dividende. Since March 2023, he has relinquished most of these responsibilities to focus on this strategy. While his previous track record is not directly applicable here, his industrials expertise should be helpful given the importance of that sector in the German equity market. In the wake of these changes, two other long-standing team members left the firm at the end of 2023, including former deputy manager Christoph Ohme. While the team was strengthened with the addition of Sabrina Reeh and it can draw on DWS’ Europe equity platform, the overall loss of experience is significant. With five people now dedicated to German equity strategies, resources are not as abundant as before.

Poppe was also appointed co-head of DWS’ European Equity team alongside small- and mid-cap specialist Philipp Schwenecke, as part of a move to promote younger talents to (portfolio) manager roles. This involves additional responsibilities and demands on his time, and his workload requires monitoring. Hence, we believe that his decision to implement the strategy’s very distinct style in a more measured way is sensible. Previous manager Albrecht used to follow a bold and often contrarian style, where he dialed risk up and down according to top-down considerations and actively managed equity exposure within a range of 90%-130%. Poppe plans to put more emphasis on stock-picking and improving the strategy’s downside resilience. Using leverage, however, remains part of the approach, though Poppe does not expect it to go above 120% under his watch. It reached 110% by the end of 2023.

More downside resilience would be beneficial given that the process comes with high potential risk, as also reflected in risk measures such as standard deviation, downside capture, or maximum drawdown, which have typically been higher than peers and its CDAX benchmark under the previous manager’s tenure. His successor’s more measured approach is reflected in the strategy’s 2023 performance, but it was hampered relative to the benchmark by its exposure to mid- and small-cap stocks, an overweighting in healthcare, and the limitations imposed by index concentration.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™Several departures and a change at the helm introduce uncertainty.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAverage
ParentAverage
ProcessAverage
 
Morningstar Medalist RatingMorningstar assigns the Medalist Rating to funds that are qualitatively and quantitatively assessed through manager research and algorithmic processes. The assessment turns on three key “pillars” – People, Process, and Parent – that yield an estimate of how well a fund will perform before fees but after adjusting for risk.
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