Launched with much fanfare in January 2008, the Jov Winslow Global Green Growth Fund was closed to new purchases as of August 14th, and will be terminated as of close of business on Tuesday October 13th, 2009. Investors may redeem their holdings in advance of the termination date. Any investor holdings that remain as of the termination date will be redeemed for cash and paid out to the investor. JovFunds has indicated that any deferred sales charges will be waived.
“We are very disappointed in our inability to make this fund a viable entity” said Steve Hawkins, Managing Partner, JovFunds. “A perfect storm of things worked against us”.
Primarily due to market conditions, but possibly also affected by a lack of marketing effort, the Jov Winslow Global Green Growth Fund had a difficult time attracting assets. As of last month, the Fund’s AUM was less than 3 million dollars. At that level, the Fund did not generate enough revenue to cover it’s administrative and operational costs, and was being subsidized by JovFunds. “Feedback was that the prospects weren’t good to attract enough assets in the near term to make it viable”, Mr. Hawkins stated.
This is a blow to existing investors in the Fund, many of whom have hung in through the tough times, and were looking forward to finally seeing the value of their holdings go up. The latest commentary from Winslow echoes this optimistic view. “Our outlook for the next several quarters is very positive. We believe the recession is ending or has ended, and we feel that our focus on a diversified portfolio of companies in expanding green technology industries, with promising fundamentals, strong management, compelling growth strategies and distinct competitive advantages puts us in an ideal position for strong returns coming out of a recession.”
Another factor involved in the decision was the reorganization going on at JovFunds, which looked at which products they had available shelf space for. JovFunds current direction seems to be towards exchange traded funds, through the Beta Pro and Alpha Pro ETFs, and the Fiera funds of ETFs. When asked if they were planning to exit the green space altogether, Mr. Hawkins did not rule out the possibility of a green ETF at some point in the future.
I would disagree with your point "but possibly also affected by a lack of marketing effort" as our sales and marketing team put forth a huge effort, advertising and marketing events were considerable and we did ads on BNN, resources were not spared.
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