JPMorgan Value Advantage Fund Class R5 JVARX

JPMorgan Value Advantage boasts plenty of experienced investors plying a reasonable approach, earning Above Average People and Average Process Pillar ratings.

In March 2024, JPMorgan tapped Scott Blasdell, the successful and experienced manager of its Large Cap Value fund, to replace longtime manager Jonathan Simon (who has since retired) as lead manager at this all-cap value strategy. While Blasdell was a reasonable choice, it was a bit surprising given that comanager Graham Spence had been in place since 2020 and a team member since 2013. At the time of Blasdell’s appointment, Spence’s role here wasn’t fully clear, and Blasdell’s comfort with implementing a different strategy in his favored large-cap-value space was uncertain.

A year and a half later, in October 2025, there’s far more clarity. Blasdell remains the lead manager and makes the key decisions, including stock initiations and liquidations. That said, it became clear to him that mastering all the details of a quite different approach was impractical: Spence handles most day-to-day duties and remains the authority on the process.

The managers continue to use the all-cap approach that Simon did, focused on valuation and quality. They and the analysts seek solid firms they can hold for multiple years, valuing financial resilience from stout gross margins and significant free cash flow. They also desire strong company-management teams, preferably those with good capital-allocation track records. The portfolio usually holds between 110 and 130 holdings, with modest turnover ratios of less than 35%.

Long term, this strategy’s performance has been middling. Its 10-year 10.1% annualized return through September 2025 lagged its large-value Morningstar Category peers and the Russell 1000 Value category index. But it has outperformed during Spence’s tenure as a manager, so there is room for optimism here.

Despite reasonable core tenets, a questionable fit with this strategy's lead manager drives an Average Process Pillar rating.

This all-cap value strategy begins with a quality preference, where the team targets companies whose temporary issues have driven lower valuations, allowing opportunistic purchases followed by long ownership periods. To the managers, quality is not just one thing: They desire good gross margins, solid EBITDA margins, strong free cash flow, and growing free cash flow per share. Th team vets company management, concentrating on previous capital-allocation decisions. The analysts do most of the company valuation work to uncover targets that trade at a discount to industry peers. Graham Spence, a team member since 2013 and portfolio manager since 2020, maintains a roster of target companies that might be good fits at the right price.

This recipe is quite familiar to Spence, but less so to lead manager Scott Blasdell. He has long run a more aggressive offering with which he occasionally wades into distressed situations. The duo splits management duties, with Spence taking the day-to-day lead but Blasdell retaining final authority. This unconventional approach remains unproven.

Over the past decade, the number of holdings here has run between 110 and 130, with an annual turnover rate between 15% and 35%. The managers don’t have sector-based risk controls—they perceive the best risk control as occurring at the security level.

So far, Scott Blasdell has kept this strategy and his long-standing one distinct from each other. His JPMorgan Large Cap Value portfolio's turnover is often around 150%, but this strategy remained in its usual range of 17% in 2024. His other strategy tends to have fewer than 100 stocks, but this one had 122 in July 2025—near its historical standard. And the portfolios remain distinct at the stock level. In July 2025, only 44 of them were held in both portfolios—low for the same manager in the same category. Five of the top 10 holdings here were not in the other portfolio.

There's no cause for alarm for the strategy's apparent style shift. This all-cap strategy still resides in the large-value category, a long-term gage, but its equity style box, which reflects the short-term, shifted to mid-value in early 2024. Its center of gravity has long been quite near the large/mid-border, which is also where the all-cap Russell 3000 Value has been.

One household name stock, McDonald’s, illustrates the interaction between portfolios. Blasdell added McDonald's in Large Cap Value and here in April 2024. Its low price met the standards of the other strategy, and the crew here was satisfied that its margins and long-term growth were solid enough to meet the quality criteria. McDonald’s remained a 1% position here; its quality profile hasn’t changed. But Blasdell sold out of the stock in Large Cap Value in February 2025, given better beaten-down opportunities.

Lead manager Scott Blasdell’s good track record elsewhere and JPMorgan’s strong analyst resources drive an Above Average People Pillar rating.

Blasdell became a named manager here in March 2024 and took over as lead in July 2024—succeeding longtime manager Jonathan Simon. He’s driven great returns at JPMorgan Large Cap Value since 2013 using a more adventurous approach within the same universe. Blasdell joined the firm in 1999, specializing in REITS before shifting to diversified large-value strategies.

He has solid support from comanager Graham Spence. Spence was hired in 2013 to assist Blasdell’s predecessor and became a named manager in 2020. He’s more attuned than Blasdell to the all-cap, quality-oriented, lower-turnover approach that remains in place and knows the small/mid-cap analysts who play key roles here. Because of this experience, his responsibility level has increased since Simon’s departure; he is in charge of much of the strategy’s day-to-day operations.

The managers benefit from three different analyst teams: three large-value analysts, nine small/mid-cap analysts, and the firm’s stellar core analyst team, which typically boasts a roster of at least 20 experienced professionals.

It appears that Blasdell and Spence have developed a productive working relationship that alleviates concerns about the former’s adaptation to a different strategy.

J.P. Morgan continues to build a track record of strong stewardship, supporting a Parent rating upgrade to High from Above Average.

With more than USD 4 trillion in assets under management (including USD 1.3 trillion in money market funds) and a broad reach, J.P. Morgan is among the largest active asset managers in the US, Europe, and Asia. Although some multi-asset offerings have struggled over the past five years, prompting new leadership to make changes to investment teams, its equity and fixed-income teams boast long-tenured portfolio managers who practice repeatable investment processes that have generally produced strong long-term results. Most of its funds are core building blocks with long lifetimes, though its lineup around the world also includes more-specialized options: Two options-based equity-income exchange-traded funds, launched in 2020 and 2022, are now among the firm’s largest. J.P. Morgan has been an early mover in offering active ETFs, having converted 12 of its open-end mutual funds to the structure and launching others. It isn’t always at the forefront of emerging trends. While it has filed registration statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an interval fund and an ETF investing in private markets, it hasn’t yet introduced such an option for all investors, whether on its own or in partnership with another asset manager, unlike some of its closest competitors.

To support the firm’s diverse investment offerings, J.P. Morgan has invested heavily in both portfolio management tools and its client organization. Over the past 10 years, the firm has developed robust proprietary technology with advanced analytics and broad buy-in from investment analysts, portfolio traders, and portfolio managers, all of whom have easy access to the platform. The firm also stands apart for its demonstrated commitment to clients. In the early 2000s, J.P. Morgan began pivoting its engagement with financial advisors to adopt a more consultative approach, supported by its sought-after Guide to the Markets research series that focuses on investor education, not product pitches. This perspective can help clients stay the course, supporting positive investor outcomes.

Incentives reinforce alignment with fundholders. Beginning more than 10 years ago, investment team compensation is tied to three-, five-, and 10-year performance, and portfolio managers must invest at least half of their deferred compensation in J.P. Morgan strategies. Many firms encourage portfolio managers to invest alongside fundholders, but J.P. Morgan goes a step further in requiring client-facing individuals to invest substantial portions of their incentive compensation in the funds.

Although some funds still face high cost hurdles, more than half of share classes charge competitive fees relative to peers.

There’s no single track record to help investors assess the strategy’s future, but a collage suggests a potentially attractive one.

On Scott Blasdell's short watch from March 19, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025, the institutional shares’ 10.9% gain lagged the Russell 3000 Index prospectus benchmark, the Russell 1000 Value category index, and the typical large-value category peer. But Blasdell’s long-term track record at a different strategy in the same universe is stellar: JPMorgan Large Cap Value’s institutional shares’ 11.2% annualized gain from April 2013 through September 2025 trounces the typical large-value category peer’s 9.9% return and the Russell 1000 Value’s 10.2% advance. Both argue for Blasdell’s worthiness.

For the five years preceding Blasdell’s arrival under former manager Jonathan Simon, the strategy’s returns were mixed. The institutional shares gained an annualized 10.5%, topping the Russell 1000 Value Index’s 10.3% mark but lagging the typical large-value category peer’s 10.7% return.

The strategy has a mixed record in bear markets and other volatile periods. It fared poorly in its one test under Blasdell from Nov. 30, 2024, through April 8, 2025. Its 16.5% loss was about a percentage point worse than the Russell 1000 Value's and a percentage point and a half worse than the typical large-value peer.

JPMorgan Value Advantage R5's Prospectus Adjusted Expense Ratio is 0.6% per year. It places it in the second-cheapest quintile of the Morningstar US Fund Large Value Category, where the median fee is 0.75% per year. This cost positioning translates into a Medalist Rating Price Score of 1.05, which reflects its relative price positioning within the category. The Price Score ranges from -2.50 (most expensive) to +2.50 (cheapest), with higher scores indicating better cost competitiveness.