Green funds are renowned for their flaccid returns, but Allianz Global Eco Trends is among the weediest of them all. If you'd have invested £100 three years ago, you'd be left with a measly £84 today.
Chelsea Financial Services listed it as the fourth worst fund on their "Drop List" due to it underperforming its sector average by 31.55 per cent for three years in a row. And Bestinvest have also named and shamed it as a "Dog Fund" in their recently published annual review of poor performing funds.
And with a weighty annual management charge of 1.75 per cent, this fund doesn't come cheap, either, especially considering it's a third-quartile performer over a three-year period in its IMA sector.
It's 58 per cent invested in the US and has a very heavy weighting to industrials (47.8 per cent). Core holdings include Polypore International, China Longyuan Power Group Corp, LKQ and Schneider Electric.
Despite the warnings from analysts, a spokesperson for the fund fiercely contested them and highlighted the fund's recent turnaround. "It is important to highlight the context; until January this year, Allianz Global Eco Trends fund sat in the global sector, which contains funds with a vast range of aims and objectives. For a fund as specialised as Global Eco Trends, it's misleading to compare it in this way," they said.
"Investors in funds such as Global Eco Trends often have very specific aims in mind. Against its benchmark - a measure we would argue is of far more relevance for investors in the environmental technology sector - the fund has performed well, outperforming the benchmark year to date and over one and three years."
You can view the data for Allianz Global Eco Trends A Acc (ISIN: GB00B29Y0P17) here.
