Pictured: Ignis AM sponsors Partick Thistle Football Club

Ignis Asset Management has been stripped of its OBSR Fund Rating for the Ignis Pacific Growth Fund.

Previously, the fund held an A rating from the Morningstar-owned ratings agency, but lost its rating after a meeting of analysts earlier this month due to the fund’s performance against several benchmarks.

OBSR noted that it monitors a variety of benchmarks including the MSCI Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) and the Morningstar Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) and found that the fund lagged all benchmarks over both a three and five year time period.

While OBSR’s researchers acknowledged that the ten year track record was reasonable, they felt that the persistent underperformance in recent years meant that the rating had to be withdrawn.

In a statement, OBSR added that, ‘the persistence of underperformance in recent years through a variety of market conditions has undermined our conviction to the extent that we believe it is appropriate to remove the rating.’

Ignis had been using the rating in its marketing materials to promote the fund and was still carrying the OBSR A rating graphic on its most recent fund factsheet as at the end of January.

The fund is managed by Diamond Lee who has been with Ignis as an investment manager since December 1996.