Investors have withdrawn a total of £1.3bn from the Baillie Gifford Japan fund over the past three years to the end of October, equivalent to over £400mn per year.
That figure is sourced from examining FE Analytics data and is not contested by Baillie Gifford.
The fund, once a flagship of the Baillie Gifford brand, is now £1.7bn in size, having been £4bn in size at the start of November 2020.
During that time it lost around 25 per cent in performance terms, which, if there were neither inflows nor outflows, would leave the fund around £3bn in size.
It is via this method the £1.3bn of outflows is calculated.
The fund has delivered a positive return on a five year basis of just over 2 per cent, but that represents a stark underperformance relative to the peer group, which has delivered a positive return of 22 per cent in the same time period.
The fund has also missed the strong rally in Japanese stocks in 2023, it is down 4 per cent this year to date, while the average fund in the IA Japan sector has gained 5 per cent.
The fund is managed by Matthew Brett, who has been at the helm since 2008.
A hint as to where the performance issues may be coming from is within the top holdings.
Softbank, a Japanese conglomerate which invests in other technology businesses, is down 5 per cent over the past year.
That is the top holding in the fund. The next largest holding is Ratuken, an online retail business in Asia.
The shares of that company have fallen 15 per cent over the past year.
At the sectoral level, the largest exposure is to telecom and technology companies.
Data from our sister publication, Asset Allocator, indicates wealth managers have been exiting the fund, with two sellers and no new buyers over the past year.
david.thorpe@ft.com
