Investment Adviser articles from April 2005

Investment Adviser archives from April 2005

Small-caps can be big: Pegrum.
April 25, 2005... Neil Pegrum, manager of Cazenove's AGBP135m UK Dynamic fund, believes performance from a small-cap bias is sustainable in a much larger fund. The manager said: "I cannot put a figure on when the fund might become too large to manage. But...

Lifetime wrap is set to hit the ground running.
April 25, 2005... OVER 1000 funds from 43 providers will be available to investors in the new Lifetime wrap from day one. Launched this Monday, the long-awaited Lifetime wrap, called the Bigger Picture, will carry nearly all the funds from some of the UK's...

Deutsche arm enters rocky stage.
April 25, 2005... The value of Deutsche Asset Management's UK arm is open to question after a high profile resignation and lost institutional mandates rocked the company last week. Despite this, three companies -- Lloyds TSB, Old Mutual and BNP Paribas --...

Bank seeks investors in renewables.
April 25, 2005... Ethical bank Triodos aims to raise AGBP5m from a share issue of its Renewable Energy fund. The bank, which has 20 years' experience investing in wind farms and hydro electric plants, projects dividends to reach 12 per cent within five...

Schroder and New Star to make public spending play.
April 25, 2005... UK fund managers are looking to tap a market in outsourced state services that could be worth AGBP60bn by 2007, according to Schroder and New Star. Last week, a report from IT and outsourcing analysts Kable suggested the state could be set...

Reit issues need ironing out: Henderson.
April 25, 2005... Henderson said there needs to be further consultation on issues raised in the government's recent discussion paper on real estate investment trusts. Steve Mallen, director of property and head of research for Henderson, said he welcomed...

Investors concerned about renewable rules.
April 25, 2005... Regulatory uncertainty in the utilities sector threatens to have a serious impact on investment into renewable energy stocks. In its annual utilities survey, PricewaterhouseCoopers said that regulatory worries were at the top of the list of...

L&G cash raises platform stakes.
April 25, 2005... Cofunds' directors claim the platform has reached critical mass to roll out new products, following a 25 per cent investment from Legal & General. The platform, which had suffered an expected AGBP15m loss to its bottom line last year after...

DWS European set for a revamp.
April 25, 2005... Having taken over the AGBP247m DWS European Growth fund, Paris Anand plans to introduce a strict selling discipline to boost the performance. Mr Anand took over the fund from David Haysey, who announced his retirement from the fund last...

Legg Mason unfazed by departure of Westwood.
April 25, 2005... Mr Westwood, who managed the AGBP37m Legg Mason UK Equity fund for the past five years, announced plans to join Morley's UK equity team in June. Bill Elcock, chief executive for Batterymarch, which has managed the former Legg Mason...

Baggini warns on going for growth.
April 25, 2005... You never see one cockroach -- that is the message from Gartmore's rising star Chris Baggini. The manager of the AGBP3.1m Gartmore US Focus fund, which is being given a AGBP27m cash injection to make it more marketable to UK IFAs, said...

IFAs dump Liontrust funds as fears mount.
April 25, 2005... Leading IFAs have dumped Liontrust funds from buy lists amid concern over the future of the asset manager. Many advisers have pulled Liontrust's AGBP239m First Growth and AGBP192m First Large Cap funds from their lists, while others who...

Axa details its UK real estate fund.
April 25, 2005... AXA Investment Managers has confirmed details of its UK-listed European and UK real estate fund. The trust, registered in Guernsey and listed on the London Stock Exchange, will look to invest in eurozone commercial properties and target a...

Research reveals truth in adage.
April 25, 2005... Investors should follow the old adage to "sell in May", according to research by stocks and shares website ADVFN. The research found that investors would be significantly better off over a longer time period if they had sold stocks in May...

Insight to trial absolute return bond fund suite.
April 25, 2005... Insight Investment plans to trial a suite of absolute return bond funds. It will first trial them with institutional clients before bringing them into its retail range The company announced the strategy alongside a clutch of top-level...

Performance.
April 25, 2005... By Daniel Judge Hargreaves Lansdown's AGBP139m multi-manager Income & Growth fund is top in TrustNet's Balanced Managed sector for April. The fund stole a march on last month's leader, Jupiter's AGBP262m Merlin Growth portfolio, with...

Glanmore Property to buy string of retail warehouses.
April 25, 2005... The AGBP562.8m Glanmore Property fund is set to purchase a batch of retail units. The Guernsey-based Oeic, managed by Tilney Asset Management, has been looking to broaden diversification within its 73-holding strong portfolio with varying...

T Bailey heads for the small and nimble.
April 25, 2005... T Bailey believes benchmark funds are underperforming compared to its unconstrained approach. The AGBP2.8m T Bailey Equity Income fund, launched last November, is second only to Artemis' AGBP18m Multi-Manager UK Equity Income fund in...

Hambi puts faith in M&G's Felton.
April 25, 2005... Gartmore has invested AGBP18m of its multi-manager assets into Mike Felton's AGBP125m M&G Capital fund. Bambos Hambi, head of multi-manager at Gartmore, said he had taken 5 per cent positions in the M&G fund in four of Gartmore's five...

HSBC poaches bond desk.
April 25, 2005... HSBC has prised a New York-based high-yield bond team from Credit Suisse Asset Management for its forthcoming specialist investment arm HSBC Halbis Partners. Richard Lindquist, who headed the high-yield bond team for CSAM, will report to...

Buy & Sell.
April 25, 2005... JO Hambro Equity Income fund Lee Gardhouse, manager of Hargreaves Lansdown's AGBP139m multi-manager Income and Growth fund, bought a position in JO Hambro's AGBP66m UK Equity Income fund. He said had had followed manager Clive Beagles from...

Split cap victims will get cash by end of year.
April 25, 2005... The bulk of the splits cap compensation package will be returned to investors by the end of the year, according to Fund Distribution Limited. FDL was set up by the Financial Services Authority to distribute the split capital trust...

Walker Crips fund gets multi green light.
April 25, 2005... At least two multi-managers have lined up to take positions in Walker Crips' AGBP8.8m Equity Income fund, following resolution of a technical issue which prevented fund of funds investment. Multi-managers had been unable to invest in the...

Revenue is under fire over property tax rules.
April 25, 2005... The UK retail market will continue to miss out on a raft of top-performing offshore property unit trusts unless the Inland Revenue implements some important taxation changes. Offshore managers, through the Association of Property Unit...

Christows' Franklin shuns commodities.
April 25, 2005... David Franklin, manager of the AGBP1.4m Christows UK Equity Growth fund, is continuing to avoid oil and commodities on the expectation that the bubble in the sector is set to burst. According to Mr Franklin, who has run the fund for a year,...

Agencies express anger at doubts about ratings.
April 25, 2005... Ratings agencies have responded strongly to new research which claimed fund ratings were obscure and had irrelevant processes. Last week, Lille-based business school Edhec issued preliminary findings of its research into four European...

Hedge strategies have rough time in the first quarter.
April 25, 2005... Hedge fund strategies posted pitiful performances in the first quarter, according to CSFB/ Tremont and Edhec indices. Credit Suisse First Boston and Tremont Capital data revealed that of the 13 underlying strategies, only one outshone over...

Merrill Dynamic makes a play for property stocks.
April 25, 2005... Merrill Lynch Investment Manager's AGBP554.74m UK Dynamic manager Mark Lyttleton is busy investing new inflows into selected property and commodity plays. The manager said he had been taking advantage of market falls during March to top up...

SLI's fixed income tilts to Japanese govt bonds.
April 25, 2005... Japan's failure to turn record levels of company cashflow into growth is good news for government bond investors, according to Standard Life Investments. In his prediction for markets during the second quarter of this year, Rod Paris, head...

Investment arm results boost Merrill.
April 25, 2005... Merrill Lynch Investment Managers has been the bright spark in its parent company's gloomy quarter, according to its results. Over the first quarter this year, Merrill Lynch reported a 3 per cent decline in earnings, and attributed this to...

Schroder to use value in Euro fund.
April 25, 2005... Schroder's new European fund is likely to take a value approach. Last week, Schroder announced that the former manager of its AGBP696.1m Tokyo fund, Denis Clough, would return on 3 May after a year's sabbatical. Darius McDermott, managing...

AITC tips trio of CTF stockbrokers.
April 25, 2005... The AITC has advised parents wishing to invest their child trust fund in an investment trust to approach three low-cost brokers. Although F&C has offered its own non-stakeholder investment trust CTF, the Association of Investment Trust...

M&A rise is set to aid private clients.
April 25, 2005... Growing UK merger and acquisition activity is good news for investors, according to the head of client investment for Abbey. John Kelly said consumer unwillingness to shoulder price increases, slow and moderate growth, low interest rates...

Halladale sets sights on private investor market.
April 25, 2005... Property investment, trading and development company Halladale has invested AGBP17.4m in its first vehicle to target the private investor market. The Halladale Nelson Limited Partnership has raised a total of AGBP11m and aims to raise a...

Beagles hopes to cash in on high street banks.
April 25, 2005... Clive Beagles is banking on banks to boost the AGBP66m JO Hambro Capital Management UK Equity Income fund. After six months in existence, the fund is heavily biased toward the sector, with half its top 10 holdings in high street stalwarts....

Needle revamps Euro Select and ups holdings.
April 25, 2005... The AGBP1.02bn Threadneedle European Select Growth fund can increase the number of its European smaller companies holdings under its new manager. While the fund will keep a concentrated portfolio of between 55 and 65 stocks, Phil Cliff,...

Corporate restructure is key European theme.
April 25, 2005... Investors should ignore Continental Europe at their peril, according to Dennehy Weller, JO Hambro and Premier. According to Brian Dennehy managing director of investment IFA Dennehy Weller, investors are continuing to try and time the...

Pru is latest signing to Exchange Gold platform.
April 25, 2005... Prudential has signed up to the Exchange's Exweb Gold platform. Policy evaluations from the Pru are now available to IFAs after it joined Standard Life and Friends Provident, who have been with the platform since its inception. Six...

Currie's UK Growth still keen on resources stocks.
April 25, 2005... Resources continues to be a key play for the AGBP205m Martin Currie UK Growth fund despite being hit by a short-term sell-off. The fund has a concentrated portfolio of 25 holdings and has an overweight to resources stocks of 28.1 per cent...

Managers seek to work around Yukos fallout.
April 25, 2005... Fund managers are still positive on the outlook for Russia despite continued poor news from crumbling oil giant Yukos. Over the past week, Yukos has suffered a new blow from a Russian court which froze the company's remaining assets,...

Coal helps Needle US fund build up steam.
April 25, 2005... Coal has continued to fire performance in the AGBP696.8m Threadneedle American Growth fund, claims its manager. Andrew Holliman, who has run the fund for a year and begun to turnround performance in that time, said that coal producers had...

Invesco says shareholders supportive of bid for STS.
April 25, 2005... Invesco claimed the market would clearly see the support it has attracted for its hostile bid for the AGBP422.6m Securities Trust of Scotland. The AGBP445.1m Perpetual Income & Growth trust had received 5.17 per cent backing for the bid by...

Tough times for US equities -- Schroder.
April 25, 2005... Schroder believes US equities are in for a rough ride, predicting the dollar will sink further and interest rates will hit 4 per cent. The asset manager is maintaining an underweight position in the US and said the huge current account...

Baillie starts push to take trusts to advisers.
April 25, 2005... Baillie Gifford has called for a forum to be established to promote trusts and claim back market share from unit trusts. Ken Edwards, sales and marketing director for Baillie Gifford, said the industry should hold an annual, or even...

Cider sale leads to merry Chelverton shareholders.
April 25, 2005... Cider is helping the AGBP8.2m Chelverton Growth trust, claims its chairman. Announcing interim results for the six months to 28 February, the trust saw its net asset value increase by 12.62 per cent to 42.29p compared with a rise of the...

Taylor bolsters Sipp range with trio.
April 25, 2005... pension specialist Taylor Patterson Associates is to add three new options to its bespoke self-invested personal pension range. The three formats, cash, investor and master, will have different charging structures. The cash Sipp is...

Time to move on property: Assetz.
April 25, 2005... BUSINESS owner-occupiers stand to be hit hard after A-Day in April 2006. At present, a self-invested personal pension scheme can borrow 75 per cent of a building's value leaving businesses only having to raise 25 per cent. But after 6...

Wealth rolls out a multi-wrap offering.
April 25, 2005... Wealth Management Software has launched a multi-wrap solution to target post-April 2006 requirements. As well as including support for pensions including drawdown, the Logical Investment Services Association multi-wrap includes technical...

Apcims adds its voice to FSA menu concerns.
April 25, 2005... Apcims has joined a chorus of criticism of FSA plans for the menu system and its impact on trail commission. The private client managers' body has warned that plans designed to increase transparency in commission and fee structures could...

Analyst drop will see small-caps slip the net.
April 25, 2005... The number of analysts covering European small- and mid-caps has fallen by two-thirds, creating greater opportunities to exploit market inefficiencies, according to GSAM. Prashant Bhayani, executive director of UK and European equities for...

Lawyer attacks decision procedures.
April 25, 2005... FSA proceedings against financial companies have been compared to kangaroo courts, with prosecutors also defending and the accused being effectively silenced, according to a law firm. Commercial law firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain has...

City trust is to revamp benchmark and charges.
April 25, 2005... The AGBP553.2m City of London trust will introduce a new benchmark and performance fee structure in July. The income and growth trust will use a customised version of the FTSE All-Share index from the start of July, so that no single stock...

US funds hit by weak dollar, poor sentiment.
April 25, 2005... US managers have attributed sliding US fund performance to negative market sentiment and dollar weakness. Funds in the S&P North America sector are back in the doldrums, after a stronger run at the end of 2004. Over three months, a...

L&G set to make things equal in UK High Alpha.
April 25, 2005... Legal & General's new UK High Alpha fund will hold equal stock weightings and allow each stock a similar level of contribution to performance. The fund, due to launch in May, will target returns of 5 per cent above the performance of the...

DWS gears up 'high octane' small-cap fund.
April 25, 2005... DWS's planned UK Smaller Companies fund will target fund of funds managers with its "high octane" strategy. The fund, which has just come to the market, will have an initial portfolio of 60 to 80 stocks, with an emphasis on absolute return....

JPMF urges trusts to widen their horizons.
April 25, 2005... Investment trusts must look to expand their distribution networks for future growth, according to JPMorgan Fleming. Speaking at the second JPMF investment trust roundtable, David Barron, head of trusts for the company, said that boards and...

SEI accused of letting IFAs down.
April 25, 2005... US multi-manager SEI has been accused of abandoning IFAs who are not delivering vast sums of assets. Some advisers believe the manager of managers has broken promises to build close working relationships with UK IFAs, telling them instead...

Jupiter warns on threat of bell-weather sell offs.
April 25, 2005... Edward Bonham-Carter, Jupiter's chief investment officer, believes the dips seen in the UK and US will not precipitate bear markets. Mr Bonham-Carter, who is also joint chief executive of the asset manager, said the falling markets were...

A fund time in the restaurant lavatory.
April 25, 2005... A recent evening do saw Gary Potter of Credit Suisse looking for the exit while Diary looked for the loo. Unfortunately, it was Gary who was ushered into the toilet and the writer who was shown the door. Were the restaurant workers concerned...

Business deal with a James Bond twist.
April 25, 2005... Diary loves 007. But the only evil overlord that Diary needs to slay is John Tiner. That is why even with a whiff of James Bond glamour, Diary gets excited. Octopus has linked up with Reading Room, a business partly owned by Catherine McQueen,...

Appeal for India's Tsunami victims.
April 25, 2005... And finally on a serious note -- not that this column has ever approached the point of being vaguely amusing -- but the work of charities in the area hit by the tsunami disaster in December 2004 continues. There are still hundreds of thousands...

Oil prices will not come down soon.
April 25, 2005... While consumers of oil are bemoaning the current high prices, they are surely asking why oil companies are not producing more when their profitability levels are so high. The explanation of this lies in the price slump of the late 1990s, the...

Stock-pickers prove themselves, says S&P.
April 25, 2005... True stock-pickers led fund performance over the first three months of this year. In its quarterly update, ratings agency Standard & Poor's claimed most managers would continue a stock-specific approach over the next year. It reported...

Allianz warns on Tesco dominance.
April 25, 2005... Trevor Green, manager of Allianz's AGBP53m Mid Cap and AGBP102m UK Growth funds, has warned Tesco's expansion is adding yet another threat to UK retailers. Mr Green said the supermarket's growth into non-traditional market areas, such as...

All lost in the supermarket.
April 25, 2005... Given the existing business ties between Legal & General and Cofunds, the life office's quarter equity stake in the platform is no great surprise. Life offices in general are coming to the understanding that, far from being a threat to their...

Diversification counts.
April 25, 2005... With the pronounced equity market volatility of recent weeks, investors are no doubt questioning their commitment to the aspiration of long-term capital growth. Time will tell whether recent falls in stock markets become a fully-fledged crisis...

European market needs a closer look.
April 25, 2005... There is no doubt that over the past two or three years the European sector has become deeply unfashionable. On the face of it, this seems somewhat surprising given that European stock market performance has in fact been extremely good. So...

Following the red tape road.
April 25, 2005... As a kid I was always a big fan of Roy Castle and nearly always managed to watch Record Breakers. I can only imagine that the senior management team at the Financial Services Authority were equally impressed with Mr Castle since if you...

The qualitative benefits of quantitative management.
April 25, 2005... Investment Adviser: Batterymarch is a well-known quantitative house. Can you explain how a quant model is constructed? Bill Elcock: The quantitative process is very much a bottom-up stock selection model that is designed to replicate the...

It is best to keep all your bases covered.
April 25, 2005... The stock market has stalled. At the time of writing, the Wall Street rally that followed the re-election of George W Bush had completely unwound. The market could have been sandbagged by any number of factors from terrorist attacks,...

All aboard the rule train.
April 25, 2005... For those of us who are trying to shape the regulatory environment for financial services, the Eurostar journey to Paris and Brussels is becoming as familiar as the Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf. There is a clear shift in rulemaking from...

The results are in.
April 25, 2005... We are four months in to the year and have just passed through the results season for companies with December year ends.AIt seems a good time, then, to review prospects for the UK equity market. The good news is that the results season was...

Alter your Destini by winning a prize.
April 25, 2005... Diary is linking up with Destini Financial Services to bring you a free day's motor racing courtesy of the specialist London-based IFA. Destini is doing a tie-in with Embassy Racing, a motorsport team competing in the 2005 SRO British GT Series...

The pacts of life.
April 25, 2005... Living up to his reputation as a skillful negotiator, Eurogroup chairman Jean- Claude Juncker managed to pull from his hat an 11th hour deal on the Stability and Growth Pact. The reform proposal got the European Union leaders' blessing at the...

PIL and Frontier make Overtures to advisers.
April 25, 2005... A suite of investment products and capital protection wrappers is being rolled out to IFAs looking to create bespoke client portfolios. Structured product specialist Product Innovations Limited and quant-based multi-asset manager Frontier...

Dealing with a debt wish.
April 25, 2005... There is a lot of upbeat news currently in the UK equity market. The winter results season showed corporate earnings in good form. Shell announced a profit that set a UK historic record, one that is likely to be broken as early as next month by...

Dependable, but lacklustre.
April 25, 2005... By Tracey Cook Money Market funds have, as expected, been the source of a steady and reliable stream of returns over the past few years. There is little differentiation across the sector in terms of performance and volatility, making the...

Safety first approach keeps fund near the top.
April 25, 2005... By JOHN FOSTER The AGBP96.9m M&G High Interest fund was launched in January 1993 and is managed by M&G's head of retail investment, Jim Leaviss. Over three years, the M&G High Interest fund was the second best in a sector of 51 funds,...

Manager Comment - Jim Leaviss.
April 25, 2005... When Kate Jones stopped managing this fund last November, I took over the running of this fund, as well as being head of retail fixed interest for M&G Investments. In the fixed interest department there is a credit team of 25. They look at...

A lower risk sector with varied results.
April 25, 2005... Even though the Money Market sector has outperformed some of the pure equity sectors over the past three-and-a-half years, performance on a risk-adjusted basis is not evenly spread. Selected Money Market funds, despite their lower charges and...

It is time for some profit-taking.
April 25, 2005... It is now time to reverse my initial advice, originally given in January 2003. Then I recommended that if you hold cash: buy some shares. Then it did not matter which. Measured on a dollar basis, Wall Street rose 38 per cent; Tokyo 61 per cent;...

Time to draw up the blueprints for Reits.
April 25, 2005... The government has now published updated proposals for the establishment of a Reit vehicle within the UK by sometime in 2006. These are broadly tax neutral vehicles which enable investors to obtain real estate exposure without tax leakage....

Fidelity boosts bond offering.
April 25, 2005... Fidelity Investments has added another fixed-income fund to its stable, launching the Sterling Bond fund on 18 March. This open-ended fund will aim to achieve a relatively high income with the possibility of capital growth from a portfolio...

Index-tracking fund gives low-cost market exposure.
April 25, 2005... By Tracey Cook Barclays Global Investors launched its AGBP139.8m iBoxx Sterling Corporate Bond fund on the 26 March 2004. Investors are relatively unfamiliar with ETFs and only 10 were listed on the London Stock Exchange when BGI...