Wants to invest in Legends funds

Q – The following funds have been recommended to me for a $250,000 investment. I am comfortable with the sectors but I know nothing of the group. The funds are Legend Canadian Fixed Income, Legend Canadian Equity, Legend US Equity, Legend US Growth Equity, and Legend Global Equity. Are these funds on your rating list? I must make a decision soon. – P.F.


A – The Legend series is a new group of funds from Standard Life, a company which has an excellent record. These are pooled funds, with much lower MERs than are charged to the regular mutual funds. That’s why the initial investment requirements are so high.


Presumably, these funds should outperform the comparable regular mutual funds over time because of the lower MERs, but they haven’t been around long enough to confirm that.


Also, many of the funds in the Legends series do not have a regular mutual fund counterpart, so comparisons in those cases are not possible.


We’ve liked Standard Life funds for a long time, and the management team is very capable. However, with the Legends series they are venturing into new territory for them in some cases (G7, Global Income, Global Equity, European Equity) so tre is no way of predicting how they will fare. With the amount of money involved, you may want to confine yourself to those funds where the management team has a proven track record with their regular mutual funds and see how the others fare. – G.P.