Fund Strategy articles from October 2005

Fund Strategy archives from October 2005

Little England may prefer to stay home.
October 3, 2005... Fund groups are suddenly launching products that are designed to provide equity income from overseas. At a time when it is difficult to identify clear trends in product launches, such funds are in vogue. Among the funds discussed by Adam...

European equity income is a first.
October 3, 2005... Charles Glasse, the former manager of the M&G European Dividend fund, plans to launch the first continental European equity income fund to the the retail market. Now managing director of 2CG, which specialises in continental European...

Miton and Optimal link-up creates #170m group.
October 3, 2005... Subject to regulatory approval, Miton Investments is to merge with Guernsey and South-African based Optimal Fund Management, to create MitonOptimal Asset Management. The combined group, which will have over $300m (#170m) of assets under...

Schroders 'sacrifices growth for income'.
October 3, 2005... Schroders is to establish a fund that will target a 7% yield by investing in a mix of actively chosen British large-cap stocks and covered call options. The Schroder Income Maximiser fund is designed to achieve half of the target yield...

IN BRIEF: Gartmore ties in Euro managers.
October 3, 2005... Roger Guy, who has managed the #1.6bn Gartmore European Selected Opportunities fund since 1993, has agreed to a new long-term contract with the group. The details have not yet been announced. Guillaume Rambourg, Guy's co-manager on the fund for...

IN BRIEF: Skandia launches ethical fund.
October 3, 2005... Skandia Investment Management plans an ethical multi-manager fund launch. The Ethical fund will use both the fund of funds and manager of managers approaches. It will invest in the F&C Stewardship Growth, Aegon Ethical and Norwich UK Ethical...

IN BRIEF: Threadneedle appoints.
October 3, 2005... Threadneedle Investments has appointed Roman Gaiser to manage its European High Yield Bond fund. Gaiser will also run a number of institutional mandates and joins Barrie Whitman, David Backhouse and Michael Poole in the high-yield bond team. He...

IN BRIEF: Threadneedle launch approved.
October 3, 2005... The FSA has approved the launch of the Threadneedle Absolute Return Bond fund. The initial offer period runs from October 3-21. The fund is available for Isa investments and has a cash withdrawal feature allowing investors to draw down capital....

IN BRIEF: Framlington will go on the road.
October 3, 2005... Framlington will hold a series of conferences beginning on January 17, 2006. Framlington Live will be held in Birmingham, Bristol, Newmarket, Southampton, Manchester, Harrogate, London, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Advisers can call 0845 766 0184...

IN BRIEF: Forgan to join Henderson.
October 3, 2005... Henderson Global Investors has appointed Chris Forgan to its multi- manager team as a quantitative analyst. Forgan's appointment completes the restructuring of the group's multi-manager team following the hire of Bill McQuaker in May 2005....

New Star and Wise target new funds.
October 3, 2005... New Star Investments and Wise Investments are both launching new funds of funds, targeting net yields of 3.5% and 3.8% respectively. New Star is adding to its fund of funds range with the launch of the New Star Cautious Portfolio on...

Jupiter sends environmental fund after income.
October 3, 2005... Jupiter Asset Management has altered the investment objective of its #27m Environmental Opportunities fund to make it more income- orientated. The fund, which will be renamed Jupiter Environmental Income, will aim to produce a yield of 3.1% in...

Atherton hands over to Marchant at Insight.
October 3, 2005... Jeff Atherton, director of international equities at Insight Investment, has decided to leave the group to become a partner at a specialist investment firm. Atherton, who joined Insight last October from SG Asset Management, will join...

IN BRIEF: Northern VCT 80% qualifying.
October 3, 2005... New purchases made by the Northern 2 VCT in the six months to July 31 have seen the proportion of venture capital assets in the portfolio rise to 80%. The net asset value per share dropped from 91p to 89p over the same period. The three...

IN BRIEF: New marketing head for F&C.
October 3, 2005... F&C Asset Management has hired Scott Stevens as head of UK marketing & marketing communications. He will report to Nick Criticos, head of UK retail & investment trusts. Prior to joining F&C, Stevens was at Deutsche Asset Management where he...

IN BRIEF: Gartmore extends Cautious offer.
October 3, 2005... Gartmore is extending its offer of a 1% discount on the 5% initial charge and 4% commission to advisers on new lump sum investments into the Gartmore Cautious Managed fund until December 31. Managed by Chris Burvill, the #212m portfolio had 56%...

Close Aim trust offers IHT protection.
October 3, 2005... The Close Aim IHT venture capital trust launches this week, giving the potential for investors to benefit both from the generous tax treatment afforded to venture capital trusts and, eventually, a portfolio of investments providing...

Net fund sales beat August 2004 total by #750m.
October 3, 2005... Net retail sales were down slightly in August compared with July, but were still substantially higher than the same month last year, according to the Investment Management Association. Net retail sales reached #815.3m in August, down from...

MFS implements first leg of restructuring.
October 3, 2005... MFS International relaunched its fund range last week, which saw the group's former Luxembourg and Cayman Islands funds merged under a single umbrella. The MFS UK-domiciled funds, however, will not join the new MFS Meridian Funds range until...

IN BRIEF: Indian GDP beats forecasts.
October 3, 2005... India's GDP grew by 8.1% on an annual basis from April to June, up from 7% a year from January-March, according to the Government of India Ministry of Statistics. The latest figure was slightly higher than the expected growth of 7.2%....

IN BRIEF: Axa assets reach Ge1/4403bn in August.
October 3, 2005... Positive currency and market movements along with net new money has helped Axa Investment Managers increase assets under management by E57.3bn (#39bn) to E403bn in the eight months to August 31. The group's net revenues of E374m in the first...

IN BRIEF: Neptune hire to build IFA profile.
October 3, 2005... Neptune has hired Adam Hughes as intermediary business development manager. He was previously director, head of sales at Montague Capital. Hughes will report to Patrick Berton, sales director at Neptune. He will be responsible for third-party...

Alternatives 'no longer specialists'.
October 3, 2005... The management of alternative assets, such as hedge funds, has begun to converge with traditional asset management, according to Jean- Christophe Ginet, managing director of strategy and development at SG Asset Management Alternative...

Key long-term trends to be debated.
October 3, 2005... The contents of Fund Strategy's investment summit in St Moritz in March are closer to being finalised. Independent experts from America, Asia and Europe will examine the key long-term trends that are reshaping the investment world. Each...

US-based funds charge less for management.
October 3, 2005... Average management fees levied by US-domiciled mutual funds are consistently lower than those charged by funds sold in Europe, according to a recent Lipper report. The report, entitled A Comparison of Mutual Fund Expenses across the...

Fidelity puts the cat among the fat-fee pigeons.
October 3, 2005... Fidelity's decision to lower the annual management charge on its MoneyBuilder UK Index fund to 0.1% throws up a number of questions relating to retail fund management fees in Britain. With a large number of asset management houses still...

TRENDS: Jupiter spins nearest to the sun.
October 3, 2005... Among the Global Growth funds, Jupiter Global Managed performed best with a 3% gain, helped by its low exposure to North American stocks hit by oil and hurricane pressures. Equity markets stumbled in August as ongoing rises in oil prices...

STRATEGY: Germany emulates British miracle.
October 3, 2005... Germany went from being Europe's wonder economy in the 1970s to its sick man in the 1990s. Now, thanks to painful private sector reform, it is making something of a comeback. I began studying economics in 1978. My interest in the subject...

Q&A: Many managers help to hedge your bets.
October 3, 2005... Chris Rule, co-manager of the Old Mutual Prosper 80 fund, answers questions from Adam Lewis. Q: Prosper 80 is described as a capital- protected, multi-manager fund of hedge funds. How does the capital protection work? A: Essentially...

On the foreign dividends trail.
October 3, 2005... Fund managers are looking over the horizon and taking diversification to the limits by searching for new sources of income from overseas. Adam Lewis reports on the quest for higher dividends in Asia, North America and Europe. Whereas in...

The fund strategists' view.
October 3, 2005... Justin Modray, investment adviser at BestInvest. We are not recommending any of the overseas equity income funds at present as we hold several reservations about them. In terms of Asia Pacific ex- Japan, the trend for companies paying out...

CHANNELS: Portfolio pickers add the personal touch.
October 3, 2005... Phil Clements, investment director of Towry Law, answers questions from James Teasdale. Q: What is Towry Law's financial advice proposition? A: We are an independent, holistic, financial planning organisation with both individual and...

ANALYSIS: Oiling the wheels for investors.
October 3, 2005... Jupiter's Anthony Nutt advocates investing for the long term but has switched #400m of his Income fund into the volatile oil sector. He predicts a rise in demand and more handouts. Petrol at #1 a litre? Bring it on. That's the hope of...

FOCUS: New dishes for different appetites.
October 3, 2005... Credit Suisse is to look at its customers' tastes before cooking up a new range of funds. Now, its Alpha Income tops the menu and the European funds add flavour. Sarah Godfrey reports Credit Suisse Asset Management is such a prominent...

FoFs: Adding value while cutting the risk.
October 3, 2005... The Gartmore Portfolio UK High Alpha Strategy fund aims to reduce volatility and maximise gains with exposure to growth, value and all market caps through its underlying funds. Active managers who are prepared to move away from indices can...

Fund of funds performance data.
October 3, 2005... Three-year rankings in the regional fund of funds sectors remained largely unchanged this month, compared with the last time we examined these sectors (August 29). Of the eight sectors reviewed this week, only the UK Equity Income and UK Equity...

Fund Manager's Diary: 19-26 September 2005.
October 3, 2005... I start the week with an arduous five-second commute to my office (which is in my house) at 7 am. It's good to get a head-start on most of the market by reading through the company announcements just as they come out. One of the benefits of...

The rise of ethics in a moral vacuum.
October 10, 2005... Most discussions of ethical investment focus on whether "socially responsible" funds can provide consistently good investment returns. In contrast, this week's cover story by Sunil Jagtiani examines whether investment funds can be...

Swip repositions Oeic for retail push.
October 10, 2005... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership is planning to lower the minimum investment on all the funds it manages in its Swip-branded Oeic from #25,000 to #1,000. Historically the 20 subfunds in the Swip Oeic have been targeted at...

Standard & Poor's opens absolute return sector.
October 10, 2005... Standard & Poor's has introduced a new sector for funds using Ucits III regulations to achieve absolute returns, owing to their increasing popularity. For the time being all absolute return funds that make use of their Ucits III powers...

New UK equity hires herald change at F&C.
October 10, 2005... Peter Lees will take on the role of head of UK equities at F&C Asset Management when he joins the group in November. Lees, together with four other UK equity fund managers, joins from Deutsche Asset Management. The other members of the team...

IN BRIEF: AITC gives Sayers new role.
October 10, 2005... The Association of Investment Trust Companies has appointed Ian Sayers to the new position of deputy director general. Sayers has been with the AITC since 1998 as technical director and has also been involved in the association's public...

IN BRIEF: Special offer on Neptune funds.
October 10, 2005... Neptune is lowering the initial charge on the Neptune Russia & Greater Russia fund and the Neptune Managed fund until December 31. The initial charges on the two funds, run by chief investment officer Robin Geffen, will fall from 5% to 3%....

IN BRIEF: Alexander joins Close Finsbury.
October 10, 2005... Stuart Alexander joined Close Finsbury Asset Management last week as head of distribution. The position will include managing all the group's external distribution channels while targeting strategic partners to develop opportunities in the...

IN BRIEF: T Bailey offers retail commission.
October 10, 2005... Intermediaries are being offered 4.5% initial commission on all lump sum business into the retail classes of the #116m T Bailey Growth and #6m T Bailey Equity Income funds. T Bailey Asset Management takes 0.5% from the 5% initial charge, and...

IN BRIEF: Gartmore holders vote to keep IT.
October 10, 2005... Shareholders of the Gartmore Fledgling trust voted to continue to operate as an investment trust company last week. At the trust's annual meeting, 99.8% of the shareholders who voted were in favour of continuation. Gervais Williams actively...

IN BRIEF: MPC leaves rates unchanged at 4.5%.
October 10, 2005... The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England has left interest rates unchanged at 4.5% for the second consecutive month. The committee last voted for an interest rate change in August, when it reduced the repo rate by a quarter point...

Chong to direct DWS funds merger.
October 10, 2005... Chou Chong, head of pan-European equities at Aberdeen Asset Management, has temporarily stepped down from running seven of the group's retail funds. This is while he oversees the integration of the DWS retail fund range, in a transition...

Hiscox sets date for global financials launch.
October 10, 2005... Hiscox Investment Management is to launch its Global Financials fund on October 24. As first reported in Fund Strategy (August 22), the fund, managed by David Astor and Alec Foster, will have an absolute return bias through a concentrated...

Pan-European real estate from Swip.
October 10, 2005... Scottish Widows Investment Partnership has launched a European real estate fund, which will invest in real estate equities in continental Europe and Britain. The Swip European Real Estate fund is structured as an Oeic and will invest in...

IN BRIEF: Two more VCTs plan merger.
October 10, 2005... The British Smaller Technology Companies VCT and British Smaller Technology Companies VCT 2 are looking to merge, according to an announcement made by the boards of the venture capital trusts last week. Legislation introduced in 2004 permits...

IN BRIEF: Four to join PSigma team.
October 10, 2005... PSigma Investment Management is hiring four new members to its investment management team. Jeremy Matthews and Rowland Flower join as investment directors, Andrew Cantouris as an investment manager and Keith Horstead as business development...

IN BRIEF: Appointments at Butterfields.
October 10, 2005... Butterfields Private Bank has appointed three new members to its asset management division. Bruce Albrecht has joined as senior vice- president, group asset management. James Best will also join the group as senior investment manager while it...

SVM to shut down offshore division.
October 10, 2005... The closure of two offshore funds, the departure of two fund managers and the launch of its UK Alpha fund have made for a busy end of year for SVM Asset Management. As reported in Fund Strategy (September 19, page 5), the group is going...

Singer & Friedlander in talks to merge Aim VCTs.
October 10, 2005... The boards of the three alternative investment market venture capital trusts managed by Singer & Friedlander are in discussions to merge the funds together as one. In September 2004 the S&F Aim VCT 3 tried to boost its assets with a new...

ING seeks #305m from real estate flotation.
October 10, 2005... The ING UK Real Estate Income trust was floated on the London and Channel Islands stock exchanges last week. The initial public offering is expected to give the trust a market capitalisation of #305m at the outset. The fund, which is...

Correction: Income funds of funds.(Correction Notice)
October 10, 2005... Last week's news story on the launch of two new funds of funds (page 6) should have noted that the CF Wise Income fund of funds is listed in the Investment Management Association's Active Managed sector. The New Star Cautious Portfolio is...

Correction: M&G European Dividend fund.(Correction Notice)
October 10, 2005... Additionally, the story on the launch of a new European equity income fund (page 5) by manager Charles Glasse at 2CG, stated his previous M&G European Dividend fund was closed owing to poor sales. In fact the fund was never closed; the...

Dollar to stay strong, says ABN Amro.
October 10, 2005... The dollar is likely to remain strong for the rest of the year despite America's huge external deficit, according to a report by ABN Amro. Tony Norfield, global head of FX strategy at the investment bank, says three factors should...

Walker Crips UK fund spawns offshore arm.
October 10, 2005... Collins Stewart has announced the details of the offshore version of the Walker Crips UK Growth fund, which it will launch later this month. As reported by Fund Strategy, (September 26, 2005, page 5), the Dublin- domiciled Collins Stewart...

NEWS ANALYSIS: Turkey ploughs IMF furrow as it waits to join club.
October 10, 2005... The European Union and Turkey have finally agreed on a negotiating framework that will allow formal talks on Turkish membership of the EU to begin, as mandated by the European Council last December. The opening ceremony came 42 years after...

TRENDS: Beating a path to absolute clarity.
October 10, 2005... The new breed of absolute return funds has sown seeds of confusion. Now Standard & Poor's is devising a formula to help analyse and compare them, writes Keith Antony, S&P data manager. Once, funds were either income funds, which made...

STRATEGY: China's great currency dilemma.
October 10, 2005... In an echo of the 1980s tensions between the US and Japan, trade imbalances between America and China leave the latter with some hard decisions to make regarding the value of its currency. Over the past few years, the balance sheets of the...

Q&A: Partner is perfect fit for global expansion.
October 10, 2005... Tom McGrath, fund manager at Miton Investments, answers questions from Simon Hildrey. Q: Why was it important for Miton Investments to merge with another multi-manager? A: Life at Miton was going very well before the merger but we...

Pure profits?
October 10, 2005... The retail market for ethical funds is growing fast with an estimated #11bn invested Europe-wide. But how do you judge an ethical investment and how do they perform compared with non-ethical funds? Sunil Jagtiani investigates. The point...

Hard to spot the difference.
October 10, 2005... Several academic studies contend that there is little difference between ethical and non-ethical fund performance. For example, a 2002 Maastricht University paper by Rob Bauer, Kees Koedijk and Roger Otten analysed the performance of 103...

Nuclear power poses ethical dilemma.
October 10, 2005... Working out whether an investment is morally good or bad is not necessarily an easy task. For instance, many ethical funds simply state they will not invest in nuclear power-related firms. The phrase "nuclear power" often appears in the sin...

Ethical fund performance.
October 10, 2005... Ethical fund performance Name 1 year 3 years 5 years Aegon Ethical 27.99 54.18 -1.76 Allchurches Amity 17.48 36.73 3.23 Axa...

Step-by-step approach provides bespoke route to wealth creation.
October 10, 2005... Capital Asset Management targets high net worth customers rather than the mass market. Director Alan Smith answers questions from Helen Burnett. Q: How is Capital Asset Management structured? A: I consider us to be a general practice...

ANALYSIS: 'Dog' halifax starts wagging its tail.
October 10, 2005... It may not be a fund that financial advisers will pick out, but the Halifax UK Growth fund has begun to show its mettle as a safe, steady- as-you-go bet, up 18.2% over the past 12 months. It's a fund you'll never recommend. It's one that...

FOCUS: First state slims to boutique size.
October 10, 2005... First State Investments' UK Oeic has shed many of its funds and is now concentrating on the areas the firm feels it is best at. James Teasdale investigates the new strategy. With more than 80% of its assets under management invested in...

FoFs: Fewer funds mean greater choice.
October 10, 2005... A wider range of asset classes means investors in the streamlined Axa Multimanager range can enjoy greater flexibility, whether through funds of funds, manager of managers or ETFs.Offering a little bit of everything can be a successful...

Fund of funds performance data.
October 10, 2005... When Fund Strategy first analysed funds of funds in the active managed sector (November 8, 2004, page 29), the average fund's three-year return was 10.2% and the top-performing Jupiter Merlin Growth Portfolio had risen 25.2% over the period....

Fund Manager's Diary: 28 September - 4 October 2005.
October 10, 2005... Wednesday At my desk for 7.30am and already the emails are flooding in. On an average day I get about 200 and it seems they arrive faster than I can deal with them. Two company meetings this morning following results, lunch with another to...

Germany and Japan not trailing Thatcher.
October 17, 2005... The leaders of both Germany and Japan are often likened to Margaret Thatcher, Britain's former prime minister. Both Angela Merkel and Junichiro Koizumi could loosely be described as conservative reformers. Both see themselves as modernisers who...

Premier boosts range with BFS buy.
October 17, 2005... Premier Asset Management is to take over the management of five split- capital investment trusts following its takeover of the BFS Investment Group last week. This will bring the number of closed-ended funds it runs to nine and will boost its...

JO Hambro bags Elvey for second US fund launch.
October 17, 2005... JO Hambro Capital Management plans to launch a second American equity fund to its onshore Oeic range next year. The group has hired Gordon Elvey to run the new fund. He previously managed American and European mandates for the British...

One door opens and another shuts in Japan for Martin Currie.
October 17, 2005... Martin Currie is to launch a new Japan Alpha fund into its UK Oeic in January next year. Co-managed by Keith Donaldson and John Paul Temperly, the fund will invest in between 30 and 40 large and mid-cap Japanese companies, with no benchmark...

IN BRIEF: New Star trust to issue 20m zeros.
October 17, 2005... The New Star Financial Opportunities investment trust is seeking shareholder approval to issue 20 million new zero-dividend preference shares. This issue of shares will replace the trust's existing #20m of bank debt and will be used to invest...

IN BRIEF: Forsyth suspends DWS fund ratings.
October 17, 2005... Following the announcement that none of the Forsyth-OBSR rated DWS equity fund managers are to join Aberdeen Asset Management, Forsyth- OBSR has removed the ratings on the DWS funds. The funds affected are the DWS American Growth, Japan Growth,...

IN BRIEF: Special offer on Gartmore FoFs.
October 17, 2005... Gartmore is offering advisers a 1% discount on the 5% initial charge and 4% initial commission as standard on new lump sum investments into funds within its five-strong Portfolio fund of funds range. The rates are available until December...

IN BRIEF: Cautious fund opens offer period.
October 17, 2005... The New Star Cautious Portfolio has opened for subscription, with the initial offer period ending on October 28, 2005. Until the deadline the group is offering a 1% discount on the normal 5% initial charge. The fund, run by New Star's fund...

IN BRIEF: Witan Pacific up 11% in six months.
October 17, 2005... Unaudited interim results for the Witan Pacific investment trust show a 13.3% increase in share price and a 10.8% rise in net asset value per share in the six months to July 31, 2005. The fund changed to a multi- manager structure in May...

IN BRIEF: Supermarkets add Maximiser fund.
October 17, 2005... Ahead of its launch on November 7, 2005, the Schroder Income Maximiser fund has been added on to the platform of four fund supermarkets. Cofunds, Selestia, FundsNetwork and Skandia have all made the fund, run by Richard Lloyd, available on...