Abrdn Global Smaller Companies has been axed from Hargreaves Lansdown’s Wealth Shortlist, after sweeping changes to the fund’s analyst team.
Investment analysts Domantas Butvilas and Angus Johnson have left the company, while investment director and abrdn Global Mid Cap Equity manager Anjli Shah is set to depart on 20 August 2025.
Aidan Moyle, investment analyst at Hargreaves, said the departing team members worked closely with abrdn Global Smaller Companies lead manager Kirsty Desson on small and medium-sized US companies, which make up 43.2% of the fund.
“Shah has provided support and analysis on US companies for nine years, and therefore her leaving is a significant loss of experience and insight within the team, especially in a region that is critical to the fund’s strategy,” they said.
The research will now be conducted by the US-based smaller companies team at Aberdeen, led by Chris Colarik, with two new analysts expected to be hired – one in Edinburgh with Desson and one in the US.
Abrdn Global Smaller Companies has not changed its approach and will still use the firm’s ‘Matrix’ tool – a proprietary method that screens companies on a range of investment criteria – and other regional analyst teams remain in place.
As a result, Moyle and his colleagues removed the portfolio from the Wealth Shortlist, home to the UK’s largest investment platform’s fund recommendations.
While Colarik “brings considerable experience in US smaller companies”, his process “has some differences with Desson’s”, including incorporating wider economic views in their analysis, said Moyle.
“They also don’t currently use the ‘Matrix’, which has historically been core to the fund’s process. This has the potential to lead to different outcomes than those previously delivered by Shah and the team,” he added.
Although the integration between the two teams could work well and the fund could benefit from Colarik’s experience, the analyst said Hargreaves Lansdown views significant team changes with “caution”.
“We expect there to naturally be some evolution of how a fund is run. As a result, we’ve taken the decision to remove it from the Wealth Shortlist.
Abrdn Global Smaller Companies’ returns have been stellar since its launch in 2012, up some 293.2%, around 33 percentage points more than the IA Global sector average, but it has struggled more recently.
Desson took charge in 2020 alongside veteran Harry Nimmo, who stepped back from running the portfolio in December 2021. Since then, she has run the portfolio as sole manager during a time when large-caps (headlined by technology stocks) have been in favour.
During her entire tenure, the portfolio has made 33.9%, a fourth-quartile effort in the IA Global sector, as the below chart shows.
Performance of fund vs sector since manager start
Source: FE Analytics
Last week, Hargreaves Lansdown also added JPM Global Bond Opportunities to the Wealth Shortlist. It is run by six fund managers including Bob Michele, global chief investment officer (CIO) and head of global fixed income, currency and commodities (GFICC), and international CIO of the GFICC Iain Stealey.
They distribute the portfolio to four other managers who have a greater focus on individual bond selection in specific areas of global bond markets.
The team invests in lots of different bonds issued by companies and governments all over the world, which Hargreaves senior investment analyst Hal Cook said contributes towards a “highly diversified” portfolio.
“The managers start by considering their view of the world and what areas of the bond market have the potential to perform well and which areas they want to avoid,” said Cook.
“Michele and Stealey then decide how much each of the other fund managers should have to invest in their different areas. Finally, the remaining managers select which specific bonds to invest in from their area of specialism.”
The fund has been a second-quartile performer in the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector over the past one, three and five years, slipping to the third quartile over a decade.
Performance of fund vs sector and benchmark over 10yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Cook said the fund should “typically provide a return that reflects global bond markets overall” and therefore is “unlikely” to suffer short-term periods of performing much better, or worse, than its rivals.
“This is one of the reasons we like the fund – it provides investors with broad exposure to bond markets, potentially without big surprises in performance,” he added.
“The fund could act as a core holding for a bond-focused investment portfolio, diversify a portfolio focused on growth, a portfolio seeking income or one focused on company shares.”