Regarding MAW104 (their flagship Balanced Fund), I've started considering this as something to suggest for some family members.
james if you're considering Mawer balanced in non-registered accounts for the 'rents, might i suggest that you consider the tax-effective version?
the underlyings are more or less the same, except that the tax effective owns the stocks outright, whereas plain mawer balanced owns other mawer funds that own the underlyings. So the tax effective fund is considerably more transparent, imho.
i'd be interested to know what differences you see in the relative performances. The Mawer tax effective should have a somewhat lower distribution, which when combined with lower taxes should give investors in this fund a return that equals or surpasses the after-tax income of the Mawer balanced.
it's difficult to find out how the Mawer tax effective fund works. I had to listen to their video, where the fund manager briefly explains what he does to avoid taxable capital gains. Because it's something that i do myself, the strategy then became easy to understand.
there will be little or no distributed capital gains. Much of the interest & dividend income will be absorbed as fees by Mawer. The result is the kind of fund model that i believe you prize so much - low distributed income but best chance for capital appreciation within the fund.
