Five global value funds thriving this year

For the many investors exposed to American shares, and with them the US dollar, 2025 has been tricky.

The MSCI All Country World Index, which is tracked by popular global index funds, is down 2.5% this year. It has 64% invested in American businesses. Meanwhile, the average return for global equity funds this year is –1.5%.

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Funds have been hit by volatile share prices as well as a weaker US dollar versus the pound this year, which has negatively affected returns on US assets for British investors by –7%.

The problems for US shares include uncertainty around the impact of tariffs, a rising budget deficit and bond yields, as well worries about shares being overvalued.

But other global equity funds – such as those that deploy a value investment approach and have been sceptical about the continued rise of US assets – have performed much better.

All the following deploy a value investment style: Ranmore Global Equity (13.7% return in 2025); Orbis Global Equity (5.4% return); Dodge & Cox Worldwide Global Stock (2.5% return ); Schroder Global Recovery (1.8% return) and RGI Global Recovery (0.4% return).

The funds have also performed well over five and 10 years, beating peers as well as the index in some cases.

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The best performer over a decade is Ranmore Global Equity, tripling investors’ money after fees.

Ranmore Global Equity has a relatively high ongoing charge of 1% a year (institutional share class) and has around £630 million in assets. The manager is Sean Peche, who founded Ranmore and launched the fund in 2008. The biggest positions are currently Mattel, Tesco and Shinhan Financial Group. The fund was among the top-10 most popular active funds on our platform in May.

FundCalibre, a fund ratings agency, says: “In a world where the number of value managers available to investors has started to dwindle, Ranmore stands out like a shining star.

“Ranmore has delivered excellent returns over a very long time period. Performance has been particularly impressive considering its value style and bias in favour of mid and smaller companies, which have generally struggled in recent years.

“We think this fund is a hidden gem and should be a big consideration for those looking to add in some value exposure to balance out their portfolios.”

Source: FE FundInfo, as of 30 May 2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.

The next best performer over a decade is Orbis Global Equity. This fund has just 37% in US shares, with emerging markets, the UK and Europe the next most popular investment regions. Two British companies make its top-10 investments: BAE Systems and British American Tobacco.

One of its core views is that American stock market exceptionalism is ending. In a recent note, the investment team said: “The expectation that US companies can continue to deliver strong earnings growth, in an environment marked by rising geopolitical risks, unpredictable policy, and weakening global demand, seems increasingly tenuous.

“Happily, the Orbis funds are much less vulnerable. We prefer to invest in companies where expectations and valuations are both lower, leaving us much less exposed to adverse shocks.”

Super 60-rated fund Dodge & Cox Worldwide Global Stock also follows a value approach, returning 89% over five years and 151% over 10 years. The value approach means that the price-to-earnings ratio of the fund is just 12.2 times, compared with 17.2 times of the MSCI All Country World index.

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Head of funds research at ii Dzmitry Lipski says: “This fund benefits from a considerable depth of management experience and continuity of management with most of the investment professionals becoming partners in the firm. The fund invests in mostly large-cap stocks that look cheap on a range of valuation measures.

“The approach relies on bottom-up, fundamental research of companies and industries and favours business with good management, competitive advantages, and good growth potential. These may also be businesses that are under a cloud at the time of purchase.”

RGI Global Recovery positions its portfolio for shares set to recover, looking at both large and small companies globally. It has returned 69.1% over five years and 104% over 10 years.

The portfolio is “attractively valued”, according to its investment team, trading on a 12-month forward price to earnings of 12.4 times compared with 16.3 times for its global benchmark.

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It is positioned for the end of US exceptionalism, with just 38.1% invested there. River Global Investors, which manages the fund, says: “The Global Recovery portfolio we manage continues to be highly exposed to the market areas we believe offer the largest recovery potential. These areas have very attractive relative and absolute valuations, trading at a 30% to 50% discount to the benchmark, and at a 40% to 70% discount to the US market.

“Additionally, small and mid-cap stocks around the world are trading very cheaply compared to large-cap stocks, value stocks are very cheap versus growth stocks, and many classic recovery stocks are just beginning to benefit from an improving outlook.”

Schroder Global Recovery has an overall p/e ratio of just 11.1 times, and a dividend yield of 4.7%. It was launched in October 2015, and since then has returned 136%.  This is behind the 147% gain of the average global fund and 205% gain of its benchmark, however, it has outperformed over the past five years.

The fund has gathered nearly £1 billion in assets and the top shares currently include UK names such as GSK (LSE:GSK), Vodafone Group (LSE:VOD), WPP (LSE:WPP) and Standard Chartered (LSE:STAN).

It is run in a similar way to Schroder Recovery, which exclusively invests in UK companies. The manager of this fund, Nick Kirrage, recently featured in an ii Insider Interview.