Which 5 global equity funds delivered 50%+ returns in 2024?

The S&P 500 made it consecutive 20%+ annual returns in 2024, with last year's 23% gain falling slightly short of the 24.2% delivered in 2023. 

In fact, three of the past four years have seen 20%+ gains, with the index posting a 28.7% return in 2021. The outlier was 2022, which saw the S&P 500 fall 18.1%. 

In any event, 2024 was a solid year for investors and while the investment universe is bigger than the S&P 500, it serves as a useful proxy for what happened in global markets.

Against this backdrop of healthy returns, the global equity fund managers in the Livewire database largely enjoyed strong performance. This is somewhat surprising, particularly given the narrow concentration of market leadership (i.e. The Magnificent Seven).

Of the 115 funds tracked, 46 delivered 23% (the same as the S&P 500) or more, 23 delivered returns of 30% or more, and five delivered returns of 50% or more - astonishing. 

Four funds in the category delivered negative performance, but we're not here to talk about the losers. We're here to talk about the winners. 

So, which fund managers led the pack in 2024? Livewire has crunched the numbers and uncovered the five best-performing funds from the past year. 

How we compiled these lists

These global equities funds are all listed on the Livewire 'Find Funds' menu (top right-hand side of your page). It should be noted that this is not an exhaustive list of all the global equities funds domiciled in Australia - there are others not listed in Livewire's 'Find Funds' marketplace.

The filters we used were:

• In the “Fund type” box, select “Managed Funds”
• In “Asset Class”, select “global equities"
• We then manually filtered results based on 1-year returns.

NOTE: Whilst it is an interesting exercise to look at fund performance over a 1-year period, most funds suggest minimum investment periods of five years or more. As such, it would be worth considering longer-term performance across cycles when researching funds or making investment decisions. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future return. 

The Results

As can be seen from the table above, Munro Partners occupies three of the top five places. This was the same case back in July, when we looked at the financial year returns. 

I subsequently sat down with the Munro team in August, discussing performance, team dynamics and some stocks they liked at the time. You can check out that wire below. 

Equities

Top performing funds: 3 of the top 5 global equities funds came from this manager (the best delivered 42.75%)

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#1 - Munro Climate Change Leaders Fund (ASX: MCCL)

Managed Fund

Munro Climate Change Leaders

Global Shares

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The Munro Climate Change Leaders Fund is a portfolio of global companies driving and benefiting from the structural shift towards a low-carbon economy, with a focus on clean energy, sustainable transport, energy efficiency, and the circular economy. The fund was launched on 29 October 2021.

The fund is long only, typically holds between 15-25 stocks, and has a minimum suggested investment period of 5+ years. 

As of the December 2024 monthly update, the top five holdings in the Fund were as follows: 

#2 - Munro Global Growth Small & Mid Cap Fund

Managed Fund

Munro Global Growth Small & Mid Cap Fund

Global Shares

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The investment return objective of the fund is to maximise long-term capital appreciation by investing primarily in a concentrated long-only portfolio of global growth-oriented small and medium capitalisation companies.

The fund is long only, typically holds between 20-40 stocks, and has a minimum suggested investment period of 5 years. This, according to the Munro website, is who the fund is best suited for:

You may consider this fund if you are looking for capital growth, intend to invest in global growth equities for at least 5-7 years, accessing leading-edge companies at the forefront of structural change and wish to remain fully invested (less than 10% cash) and are therefore less concerned by short term market volatility.

As of the December 2024 monthly update, the top five holdings in the Fund were as follows:

I have had the pleasure of speaking with Lead Portfolio Manager, Qiao Ma, multiple times since the launch of the Fund. The latest instalment can be read below:

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A sizzling start: How Qiao Ma delivered 62.2% returns in the first year of Munro's new strategy

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#3 - Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund (Managed Fund) (ASX: HYGG)

Managed Fund

Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund (Managed Fund)

Global Shares

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Hyperion commenced managing the Hyperion Global Growth Companies strategy in 2014 for certain wholesale investors. Subsequently, the Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund was established to give individual investors, as well as new institutional clients, access to this strategy.

Its managers say the fund is the result of over 10 years of research into global businesses. As with all Hyperion’s investments, the Fund aims to deliver long-term returns for our clients.

The fund changed its name from Hyperion Global Growth Companies Fund on 5 February 2021 in order to facilitate quotation of the fund on the ASX. Under the ticker ASX: HYGG, the Fund was made available on the ASX in March 2021.

The top 5 holdings as per the November Fund update: 

#4 - Munro Concentrated Global Growth (ASX: MCGG)

ETF

Munro Concentrated Global Growth Fund (Managed Fund) (MCGG)

Global Shares

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The fund aims to maximise long-term capital appreciation by investing in a concentrated portfolio of 20-40 global growth-oriented equities. It excludes Australia. It has a hurdle for performance fees of outperforming the higher of either the MSCI World (ex-Australia) Total Return Net Index in Australian dollars or the annualised yield of the Australian government bond. The fund aims to be fully invested in equities.

#5 - Plato Global Alpha Fund (ASX: PGA1)

Managed Fund

Plato Global Alpha Fund

Global Shares

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The Plato Global Alpha Fund aims to outperform the MSCI World Net Returns Unhedged Index by 4% p.a. (after fees) over the medium-long term. The fund uses an all-weather investment style that seeks to deliver consistent alpha over the cycle.

The fund is managed by Dr David Allen, a regular contributor on the Livewire platform. Dr Allen's latest wires are available below:

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Don’t listen to Wall Street if you want to know what markets will do in 2025

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2 stocks to buy & 3 shorts as GLP-1s approach a new frontier

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The tables below show the top 5 equity contributors in the Fund over the past 12 months, and the top 5 active long equity holdings - as per the December monthly report.