Portfolio management teams led by women fared better than their male-led counterparts during this year's market downturn, according to a report from Investment Metrics.
Looking at global large-cap equity portfolios, those which were led or partly-led by women had a "median active return" of -2.6% year-to-date through the end of September, compared with MSCI All-Country World style indexes.
Scott Treacy, New York-based research consultant at Investment Metrics, a Confluence company, explained in an interview that the women-led portfolios did only 2.6 percentage points worse than their style benchmarks.
The core MSCI All-Country World index dropped 25.3% year-to-date through September.
In comparison, large-cap equity portfolios led by men delivered an active median return of -5.3%, meaning they did 5.3 percentage points worse than their style benchmarks.
"I used the style indices to account for the manager differences of investment style," Mr. Treacy said in a subsequent email. "This removes the style factor and its influence on performance. This way you can more effectively evaluate whether men or women did better leading a team in certain market environments."
THE MSCI ACWI Growth dropped 32.2% and the MSCI ACWI Value fell 19.1% year-to-date through the end of September.
Among the best year-to-date performing women-led portfolios were Ariel Investments Global Equity (which beat the core benchmark by 11.6 percentage points), Walter Scott Global Equity (3.5), Clearbridge Global Growth (2.7), Hardman Johnston Global Equity (2.3), and Epoch Global Shareholder Yield (1.9).
The report evaluated a total of 90 large-cap equity portfolios from 73 asset management firms, including such names as AllianceBernstein, Franklin Templeton Investments, T. Rowe Price Group and Schroders plc. However, of those 90 portfolios, only 13 (or 14.4%) were managed or co-managed by a female.
The report noted that despite this superior performance, women remain underrepresented in the global investment industry. Within the 90 portfolios that the study reviewed, women managed only $90 billion of $698 billion in total assets, or about 13.3%, the report said.
The female-led large-cap portfolio management teams with the most such assets included Walter Scott & Partners ($39.6 billion), Ninety One Asset Management ($14.1 billion), Pzena Investment Management ($7.9 billion), Epoch Investment Partners ($7.8 billion) and Loomis Sayles & Co. ($6.7 billion).
"While some asset management firms have made progress in gender parity, others have a long way to go," the report concluded. "Our analysis shows there is a strong case to build female led teams: their recent performance in down markets has demonstrated their ability to navigate volatile capital markets. More women should be given more opportunities to lead portfolio management teams at asset management firms and more institutional investors should be directing assets towards women led portfolios."
Investment Metrics is a global provider of investment data, performance, analytics and research software solutions that serves institutional investors and advisers. The firm was acquired late last year by Confluence Technologies Inc. according to a Nov. 3, 2021, news release from Confluence.
