By Roy Hayhurst
DALLAS — Employees celebrated GuideStone Funds’ 10th anniversary on Monday. Despite a tumultuous first decade that includes the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, two recessions and market downturns plus a financial crisis, GuideStone Funds has earned a place among the national leaders in the mutual fund industry. Throughout the Funds’ first decade, third-party ranking firms such as fi360, Lipper and Morningstar have provided evidence that GuideStone Funds can rival and surpass its competitors in the marketplace. In fact, for the quarter ending June 30, 2011, fi360 ranked the GuideStone Funds family as number two out of 222 fund families nationwide.
GuideStone Funds — the nation’s largest Christian-based, socially screened, registered mutual fund company — was launched as AB Funds Trust on August 27, 2001, when GuideStone was still officially known as the Annuity Board. At its launch, GuideStone Funds offered 13 funds; today, that number has doubled and future new fund offerings are regularly assessed and contemplated.
“The historic launch of GuideStone Funds paved the way to providing our participants with more flexibility and confidence in their portfolios through industry-standard product offerings,” said John Jones, president of GuideStone Funds and chief operating officer of GuideStone Financial Resources. “It heightened the level of service we provide our participants, as many of our employees have more advanced training, securities licenses and professional designations.”
The launch of the registered mutual fund family also provided enhanced disclosures and transparency for GuideStone’s participants — today numbering more than 200,000 across all GuideStone product lines — to understand their investment choices.
“It also opened the door to expanded savings opportunities with IRAs and personal investment options, as well as institutional investment opportunities for operating, building reserves and endowment assets,” Jones said.
“The GuideStone Funds are built on the investment philosophy developed by the funds adviser, GuideStone Capital Management,” Jones said. “The multi-manager, multi-style investment approach allows GuideStone Capital Management access to what they believe to be some of the best investment minds in the world.”
“Our investment structure is built for the long-term,” said Rodric E. Cummins, senior vice president and chief investment officer of GuideStone Capital Management. “It is designed to provide thoughtful, high-quality, strategic investment options to our participants; and is executed by world-class investment management firms.”
In addition to the fi360 standings, Lipper has noted 15 of 21 funds performed above the median for the one-year period; 19 of 20 funds performed above the median in the three-year period and 11 of 14 funds performed above the median for the five-year period as of July 31, 2011. Morningstar has ranked GuideStone Funds as either four-star or three-star funds 17 of 19 funds overall, and in the three-year period, and 12 of 12 funds in the five-year period as of July 31, 2011.
To determine fi360 standings, mutual fund and ETF families are ranked by the fi360 Fund Family Fiduciary Rankings. In these rankings, fi360 determines the percentage of the individual funds in a family that have a fi360 Fiduciary Score™ in the top quartile of their peer group. The Score evaluates investments on nine different criteria to determine if the investment meets a minimum fiduciary standard of care: regulatory oversight, track record, assets in the investment fund, stability of the organization, composition consistent with asset class, style consistency, expense ratio/fees relative to peers, risk-adjusted performance relative to peers and performance relative to peers. Additionally, fund families must contain at least five distinct funds with a three-year history to be considered in the report.
Jones acknowledged the first decade of the 21st century laid out several challenges the funds had to endure, but said that those challenges though haven’t impaired GuideStone Funds’ commitment to those they serve.
Noting the fund family’s track record Cummins said the first decade for GuideStone Funds has been a story of sustainability through turmoil.
“Over the past 10 years we’ve been able to do more than stand strong,” Cummins said. “We’ve been able to expand our fund offerings for the benefit of our participants, implementing investment philosophies that we believe serve them best without forgoing our convictions. “In short, GuideStone Funds holds to the exact same tenets today that we held to 10 years ago, and those will be the same tenets we hold to 10 or even 100 years from now. In addition, as the GuideStone Funds rankings demonstrate, we believe we have dispelled the myth that if you want your money to grow, you have to invest in things you might wish you didn’t have to. While past performance is no guarantee of future results, our participants can see for themselves by looking at our results and recognizing that performance and values-based investing do not have to be mutually exclusive. They can walk hand-in-hand.”
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Roy Hayhurst is editorial services manager at GuideStone Financial Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
You should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of GuideStone Funds before investing. For a copy of the prospectus with this and other information about the funds, please visit www.GuideStoneFunds.org or call 1-888-98-GUIDE (1-888-984-8433). You should read the prospectus carefully before investing.
