JPM America Equity D (acc) EUR

Analyst Report
Morningstar's Take
|25/07/2024

by Adam Sabban
As expected, Jonathan Simon will retire from his role as a portfolio manager of this strategy, effective March 4, 2025. The firm prepared for this eventuality by naming Jack Caffrey as comanager in March 2024. He will assume responsibility for this bifurcated portfolio's value sleeve. Dan Percella was initially named comanager in 2022 and figured to be a potential successor, but he was removed in 2024 in favor of Caffrey. Caffrey will now be joined by Graham Spence, comanager of JPMorgan Value Advantage and longtime partner of Simon. Spence’s addition is meant to bolster the resources and ideas available to the strategy, while providing some support at the manager position. Spence will work alongside Caffrey as comanager, though Caffrey retains final say.

Overall, the strategy’s management team of Caffrey, Spence, Felise Agranoff, and Eric Ghernati has a mix of experienced managers and relative newcomers with more to prove. Accordingly, its People rating of Average and Morningstar Medalist Ratings are unchanged based on the news.

 
We have qualitatively reviewed this strategy and reaffirmed its Process and People ratings. JPMorgan US Equity Focus has the backing of a strong research platform, but uncertainty around the evolving portfolio management team, including the March 2024 announcement that Jack Caffrey will assume control of the value sleeve in early 2025 from the retiring Jonathan Simon, makes it difficult to embrace. The following text is from Aug. 7, 2023.

This concentrated offering leans heavily on two highly successful and experienced managers, though one is retiring soon and another is in the latter stages of his career. Tim Parton and Jonathan Simon split the strategy’s assets, the former overseeing a growth sleeve and the latter a value sleeve. (Eytan Shapiro manages a small sleeve of small-cap stocks in the U.K. closed-end vehicle). They’ve done a good job over their joint tenure, which began with Parton’s addition in 2017, though Simon’s record dates back much further. Both have strong records on other U.S. equity strategies, too. However, Parton’s pending retirement in 2024 has thrust a newcomer to large caps into the spotlight. Felise Agranoff will assume Parton’s responsibility for growth investments, and while she has worked with Parton on other strategies, most of her background is in small- and mid-cap stocks. She’ll now be tasked with steering a very concentrated sleeve of about 20 large-cap growth stocks.

Jonathan Simon remains anchored as the value-equity decision-maker, though he is likely inching toward the tail end of his long career. Partly to address the eventual need for succession, J.P. Morgan named Dan Percella as comanager in 2022. Percella has a history as comanager of the highly successful JPMorgan Small Cap Equity VSEIX U.S. mutual fund but, similar to Agranoff, doesn’t have stand-alone large-cap experience. With Simon still firmly entrenched, Percella remains in a passive role for now but will likely ramp up as time goes on.

The managers run separate sleeves but communicate and collaborate regularly on potential trades, portfolio construction, and rebalancing between the sleeves. Such teamwork comes naturally to Parton and Simon, who’ve worked at J.P. Morgan for over 30 years each, but may not be as second-nature once Agranoff comes aboard. This strategy’s concentration in about 40 total stocks only magnifies the stakes, with untested managers on the horizon.

Standing in the managers’ favor is the backing of a deep and accomplished research platform that powers many Morningstar Medalist funds. The managers have a good set of tools, but it remains to be seen how the newcomers fare.
 
Morningstar Medalist Rating™Change on the horizon.
To find out how Morningstar rates a fund click here.
Morningstar Pillars
PeopleAverage
ParentAbove Average
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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