The fund’s investments will change quite a bit from the current situation. The justifications mentioned on Seligson’s website were a bit too difficult for me to understand, but this is not a small change, but a considerable change in portfolios. It would be nice if Seligson could explain the reasons and effects of this change in a more concrete, “dummy-proof” way.
3 Likes
Well, luckily - if I know anything about the company’s ways - the matter will be thoroughly and interestingly dissected in the next review that drops through the letterbox 
7 Likes
Yes, and the changes are also significant in European and Asian indices.
Tech companies are becoming increasingly significant, but I am pleased that Philip Morris is no longer in the top ten.
2 Likes
I asked Seligson about it just for fun, and that’s exactly how it is! So, the matter will be discussed in more detail in the next review.
7 Likes
The essence of the change doesn’t seem to be a small decrease in the cost level, but rather a clearly different benchmark index. Wider diversification into more companies and with more tech weighting, at least in the USA.
It’s a pity this wasn’t done a couple of years ago, especially concerning the USA fund.
1 Like
LähiTapiola’s asset management operations will be merged into Seligson. Seligson has also received an alternative investment fund manager license. The portfolio managers of LähiTapiola funds will transfer to Seligson’s service:
\u003eWith the merger, fund operations within the LähiTapiola Asset Management Group will be centralized into one company, meaning that in the future, Seligson & Co Fund Management Company will manage all Seligson & Co and LähiTapiola funds. At the same time, Seligson & Co Fund Management Company will begin operating as an alternative investment fund manager in accordance with its new license.
\u003eThe portfolio management of LähiTapiola investment funds has previously been outsourced to LähiTapiola Asset Management, and this outsourcing will end on December 31, 2025. The portfolio management teams that have managed LähiTapiola funds will continue to manage the funds’ portfolios under the employment of Seligson & Co Fund Management Company and will select the funds’ investment targets using the same investment process and criteria as before.
\u003eThe changes will not incur costs or tax consequences for unitholders, nor do they require any action from unitholders or investors. Customers can also continue to conduct business through either Seligson & Co’s or LähiTapiola’s online and customer service channels.
20 Likes
Seligson’s annual review has been published:
Review 4 / 2025 has been released. Content in brief:
| Anatomy of Active Portfolio Management | Portfolio management styles, means of active risk-taking, the activity of our funds |
|---|---|
| Brand as a source of competitive advantage | Brand companies, Global Top 25 Brands fund, the role of brands in the portfolio |
| The year of index funds | Changes in fund benchmark indices, other news, and precise key figures |
| Stocks or funds – or both | Comparison of direct stock investment and fund investment |
| Closet indices (comic) | Bubble talk, closet indexing, and a bull gone wild |
| — |
Themes/companies covered in the reviews of active funds:|
|Family Companies|Market optimism and concerns, Syensqo, SIG|
|Phoebus|The role of the benchmark index and fund activity, Givaudan, ADP|
|Tropico LatAm|News from a profitable year|
- Changes in the Global Brands fund: New additions are Airbnb and Ferrari, while Mondelez and Burberry are out. In the fund’s year-end rebalancing, there are always five investments with a 6.66 percent weight. Samsung Electronics, which entered as a small position last year and performed well, now rises to this top five, and Alphabet is reduced to approximately a 3.33 percent weight. Coca Cola, Apple, LVMH, and Pepsico continue in the top five. In my opinion, The Magnum Ice Cream Company spun off from Unilever (one of the Brands fund’s companies) as its own entity late last year, but there was no mention of this in the review. There is more coverage of the fund in the review. Seven companies have been included from the start, i.e., since 1998: American Express, Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonald’s, Nestle, Nike, and Procter & Gamble. Long-term work indeed, even for active funds.
- In Global Pharma, only one change was made as the Belgian drug developer UCB replaced the Japanese Astellas Pharma. The top five continue to be Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Roche, Astrazeneca, and Merck & Co.
- The Tropico LatAm fund returned a staggering 46.6 percent last year. This is a fact that will surely please at least the forum’s best-known Tropico LatAm unitholder, @Vanerihands.
16 Likes
Seligson’s latest quarterly review (https://www.seligson.fi/resource/seligson_rahastot_4-2025.pdf) has just been published, and this time it includes particularly interesting reading for anyone contemplating their investment strategy. In the review, Jarkko Aho deconstructs the anatomy of passive and active portfolio management—the basic building blocks upon which long-term investment success is built.
This text resonated with my own investment thinking at just the right time. I have occasionally wondered whether an investor should try to beat the market by taking an active view between different indices, or strictly stick to global market weights.
My past experiences have taught me humility. Whenever I have started overweighting certain countries or sectors, I have eventually found myself losing to the global stock index. The more I have tried to fine-tune, the further I have often fallen behind the market’s average return. That is why the core of my portfolio now leans heavily on my savings following the actual distribution of the world’s stock markets. Aho’s analysis reinforces this idea. Passive investing is not just an “easy choice”; it is a disciplined way to accept market efficiency and minimize the mistakes that active position-taking often brings. By focusing on broad diversification and cost-efficiency, one gives costs and time the best opportunity to do their work.
If you are reflecting on your own relationship with active and passive investing, I recommend reading the review. It serves as a good reminder that in investing, less is often more.
18 Likes
In the latest review, perhaps the biggest “aha” moment for me was the idea in Anders Oldenburg’s column that you can be a stock picker and a fund investor at the same time. I have been doing this for a long time, and my reasons are quite similar to those in the column.
Another good article was about index changes; the previous indices led to a high volume of trading, but now the indices are more stable.
All in all, another good review—these are a pleasure to read.
12 Likes
I agree with you. Still, I’ll offer a slightly different perspective. If one’s experience is based specifically on the returns of the last 15 years, then almost every other sector or region has performed worse than the large US growth companies, and many have also performed poorly relative to their own historical averages. Since the world index, according to market capitalization, is heavily weighted toward these US growth companies, it has been very difficult to beat a market-cap weighted world index (except by investing solely in the index’s biggest drivers).
It may be that you have chosen the right things based on valuation levels and put the odds in your favor, but the winning streak of US tech—and thus the world index—has been exceptionally strong. Perhaps those active maneuvers will still pay off and then some in the long run. But the bottom line remains the same: it might be best to just follow global market weights, because you can be wrong for a long time, and it is frustrating to have hindered your own performance with your tinkering. (Tracking error regret). It is harder to “lose” because of your own choices than because the market simply didn’t deliver.
6 Likes
If you truly believe in market efficiency, simple active portfolio management based on valuation levels won’t put the odds in your favor 
The companies that drive major global indices are the most analyzed and efficiently priced companies in the world.
1 Like
Well, why was the IT bubble inflated in the late 90s then? Big companies were full of hot air. And what happened in 2000-2003?
1 Like
The market is not always efficient, but it is efficient to the extent that it’s not worth assuming that by staring at valuation multiples you will gain an edge with which you can likely beat the market.
1 Like
At least in early 2000, it was easy to see that we were in a bubble. The S&P 500’s CAPE was 44. All rational people underweighted bubble indices. The only problem is that portfolio managers don’t dare to deviate significantly from the herd, because they might lose their jobs. It’s much easier for a private investor to go their own way. There is no need to follow the mainstream into the abyss. By the way, the S&P 500’s CAPE is currently about 41:
6 Likes
That’s a good point about portfolio managers being forced to be involved, but I don’t quite believe it was as clear then as it seems now in hindsight. Exiting too early can also be a mistake, and a bubble, if this is one, might continue to swell for years without ever returning to the levels at which an investor would end up selling now.
Even a guru like Druckenmiller ended up doing stupid things in the tech bubble. As an interesting side note, I found this news article. I wonder if the gentleman is repeating his mistake 
I have also ended up underweighting the US and slightly reducing leverage, but I certainly don’t think that with these moves I would likely be smarter than the market.
6 Likes
You don’t have to sell anything. You can, for example, invest in the SCV factor. It rarely bubbles.
2 Likes
That is actually what I have been doing, but my point was that even this kind of portfolio modification is still taking a view, which inherently is more likely to lead to a worse outcome. Well, a factor investor can of course be of the opinion that the expected return for SCV is better because of the factors, so overweighting it improves the portfolio’s expected return.
So, my criticism was directed at the assumption that making allocation changes to the portfolio according to the investor’s current market views or valuation levels is likely to result in better returns than completely passive global index investing.
Edit. The discussion is starting to go off-topic.
2 Likes
Anders Oldenburg explains Phoebus’s key figures in more detail:
In a well-diversified (scattered) portfolio, this wasn’t very noticeable.
4 Likes
Tropico LatAm to be merged into the LähiTapiola Emerging Markets investment fund:
A big disappointment, but as it was Seligson’s smallest fund, this was quite expected. I will be divesting my holdings.
12 Likes