Foreign Stock Fund Managers of the Year: Jean-Marie Eveillard and Charles de Vaulx

12/31/01 - 07:26 AM EST

Like a shiny English pound coin in a dustbin, Jean-Marie Eveillard and Charles de Vaulx's (SGENX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr)First Eagle SoGen Global fund is a standout in the battered foreign fund pack. That's why they're our foreign stock fund managers of the year.

Let's face it, in a year when every foreign stock fund category lost ground, it's not easy to hand out hardware. But unlike most of its competitors, the broker-sold First Eagle SoGen fund, which blends stock and bond investments, is well in the black this year, up 9.1% since Jan. 1. The co-managers' conservative tack might not get your pulse racing, but in a lousy year like this one, it's been downright thrilling.

Since the fund's launch in ye olde 1979, Eveillard has practiced a cautious, value-oriented approach. He and de Vaulx, who became a co-manager in 1987, invest in obscure, foreign, small- and mid-cap stocks they believe are trading for less than they're worth, and hold them for years. The fund's top holding at the end of October, for instance, was Buderus, a German maker of heating systems, in which 6.5% of the fund's money was invested. A third of the global fund's assets were invested in U.S. securities on Oct. 31.

TheStreet.com's
2001 Foreign Stock Fund Managers of the Year:

Charles de Vaulx and
Jean-Marie Eveillard

Fund:
(SGENX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr)First Eagle SoGen Global

Managed Since:
Jan. 1, 1979*

Assets: $1.5 billion

1-Year Return: 10.7%, Beats 98% of Peers

10-Year Return: 11.1%, Beats 67% of Peers

*Since fund inception, de Vaulx since 1987. Sources: Morningstar

The veteran managers undercut the volatility of their stock holdings by typically keeping between 10% and 15% invested in bonds. That's paid off, given that the fund's worst one-year loss over the past 20 years was its 1.3% dip in 1990.

Even though the fund's bond stakes churn out taxable income, Eveillard and de Vaulx's modest trading have made their style more tax-efficient than their average peer, and the fund's 1.32% annual expense ratio is below average for the category.

Though these two boast a solid record, their cautious style is designed to shine brightest in a tough year like this -- the fund's 9.7% gain last year trounced its peers as well. But there are downsides to the slow and steady approach. Their strategy will often seem winded in a market led by pricey growth stocks, as it did in 1995 and 1998. That said, this year proves the value of this defensive, price-conscious approach and the managers practicing it.

Other managers who were on our short list in this category were Hakan Castegren ((HAINX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr)Harbor International), the team behind the (AEPGX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr)EuroPacific Growth fund, as well as Richard Pell and Rudolph-Riad Younes ((BJBIX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr)Julius Baer International Equity).