DWS Money Plus Advantage

By · Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Kindly refer to my note on DWS Money Plus Advantage (an MIP variant) which was posted on my blog on September 04’ 2009. As mentioned there, this asset class is once again becoming flavor for investors with very little options available both in Debt & Equity markets. In that note I had mentioned the list of attributes one should look in an MIP scheme before investing.

One fund House which has had a dedicated focus on an MIP variant with all the above features intact is DWS & the scheme name is: DWS Money Plus Advantage (90:10 product). Since the inception of the scheme on November 2’2007, it has a consistent track record of monthly dividend payouts & the scheme is managed exactly on the lines mentioned in that note.

Debt is managed as high accrual lower average maturity & equity is managed with some strategies as mentioned below with absolute gain theory to create alpha.

Equity component is being managed thru following strategies:

  1. Buy Back
  2. Open Offer on Delisting
  3. IPOs

One word of caution which I had not mentioned in that note & which needs to be highlighted here is that since some of the strategies involve equity variants like Buy back & open offer on de listing, the equities which would have been bought with these strategies in mind are capable of either going up or down from the purchase price of these equities till such time the actual buy back & Open offer strategies pan out at some later date. Hence, though technically it can give negative returns on monthly or quarterly basis (based on SENSEX going up or down) on six monthly or on yearly basis (by which span of time these strategies pan out) it should not give negative returns. The same can be seen from the following 3/6/12 month rolling returns observations:

 

12 Mth Rolling Ret

 

6 Mth rolling Ret

 

3 Mth rolling Ret

Max

13.26%

 

Max

20.32%

 

Max

26.36%

Min

6.06%

 

Min

2.44%

 

Min

-2.33%

Avg

11.06%

 

Avg

10.26%

 

Avg

9.56%

Total Obs.

254

 

Total Obs.

346

 

Total Obs.

419

Neg Obs

NIL

 

Neg Obs

NIL

 

Neg Obs

Three

 

With some cushion maintained in their Monthly Dividend NAVs, the said scheme has not skipped a single dividend even in those months where they might have gone negative.

Dividend Track Record (in % p.m. & Total % p.a.):

 

 

2007

2008

2009

Jan

 

0.5

0.75

Feb

 

0.5

0.75

Mar

 

0.5

0.75

April

 

0.5

0.75

May

 

0.5

0.75

June

 

0.5

0.75

July

 

0.5

0.75

August

 

0.5

0.5

Sept

 

0.5

0.5

October

 

0.5

0.5

Nov *

0.5

0.5

 

Dec

0.5

0.5

 

Total

1

6

6.75

 

 

 

 

* Inception date November 2′2007

 

Hence, a word of advice & caution is that kindly do not judge the scheme based on 3-6 month performance. Each strategy in equity needs min of 6 months or higher to pan out & hence in the intervening period (just like Arbitrage Schemes) the NAVs are likely to be volatile.

I would strongly advise you to look to invest in the said scheme with one year plus view. This can

a) Generate regular returns

b) Outperform other debt market schemes on an ongoing basis.

 

 

Comments

By Prateek Jain on November 5th, 2009 at 16:01

What does the debt portfolio look like? What has been the success ration in its equity portion?

Thank you for reviewing your expert opinion on DWS Money Plus Advantage (MIP variant).

I’ll appreciate if you can also review your view on “Fortis Flexi Debt Fund” as it has not performed in the last 6 months.

Regards,

 

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