JPMorgan US Value boasts a seasoned team plying a time-tested approach.
After running the show here for 20 years, portfolio manager Clare Hart retired on Sept. 5, 2024. Under her watch, the fund's institutional shares beat the Russell 1000 Value prospectus benchmark and drubbed the typical large-value Morningstar Category peer. Hart won Morningstar’s Outstanding Portfolio Manager award for investing excellence in 2024.
While Hart’s retirement was a key loss, this team remains in good hands. Comanagers Andrew Brandon and David Silberman have the skill and experience to drive outperformance over the long term. Brandon came to J.P. Morgan Asset Management as an equity analyst in 2000, joined this team in 2012, and rose to named manager here in November 2019. Silberman joined the firm in 1989 and ran portfolios for private clients before serving as the firm’s corporate governance expert starting in 2008; he joined this team as a comanager in November 2019.
The comanagers have solid support. Dedicated analysts Tony Lee and Lerone Vincent joined this value team in 2018 and 2022, respectively. In January 2024 the managers, including Hart, recruited Laura Huang from the firm’s central analyst team to cover financials—Hart’s area of expertise.
This strategy rests upon a classic value philosophy: A pool of well-run but undervalued companies with consistent earnings and disciplined capital allocation should beat the market. The team seeks 85-110 high-quality companies with reasonable valuations. The key here is not so much in this sensible viewpoint as it is in executing it with discipline and detailed insight.
The strategy’s returns from November 2019 through August 2024 (when Brandon and Silberman managed alongside Hart) thumped the typical peer and prospectus index. It did especially well in the sharp rally following the 2020 pandemic panic as well as the 2022 downturn.