Investment Adviser articles from July 2004

Investment Adviser archives from July 2004

New Schroder FoFs to use Ucits III laws.
July 5, 2004... SCHRODER Investment Management has confirmed it will use Ucits III legislation within its funds of funds, due for launch in September. Schroder is awaiting FSA approval for the Schroder S&P Strategic Balanced Portfolio, a cautious managed...

IT is cause of swing pricing lag.
July 5, 2004... A LACK of technology has been blamed for a slow take up in swing pricing. A shortage of IT systems is thought to be the reason why swing pricing -- the method of fixing a unit price in a bid to stop dilution -- has not been taken up by...

Calls on the Treasury to level the property field.
July 5, 2004... By Simoney Girard Property fund managers are tackling the Treasury to allow open-ended property funds to be made Isable. Product developers, and representatives from the government and the asset management industry are involved in the...

Small-caps reap M&A gains.
July 5, 2004... by ed monk Smaller companies managers have reaped the rewards of increased merger and acquisition activity in the first half of the year. Preliminary figures from Thomson Financial showed that the value of deals in 2004 had reached...

Tech head for Bates ahead of expansion.
July 5, 2004... IFA Bates Investment Services has created a post of head of technical functions ahead of expansion. Antonio Bosano takes on the role and will provide specialist technical support, principally on estate planning solutions. The Money...

Asset firms look set to be profitable again.
July 5, 2004... Asset management firms are returning to profitability according to investors in the sector. Asset Management Investment Company, which invests in investment houses, had seen its own profits fall as the recovery in global markets took time...

Pioneer roll out looks to US bonds.
July 5, 2004... Pioneer Investments has launched a high yield bond sub fund. The global investment management house said the new fund would mirror its US-domiciled mutual fund -- the Pioneer Global High Yield fund. Both funds will share the...

Solus Flagship to focus on risk management.
July 5, 2004... by nigel davies Risk management of stocks will be key to the new Solus UK Flagship fund, according to its manager. The fund will invest in a portfolio of 40 UK listed companies, starting its life at AGBP21m in assets under management...

Cash plans may mean savings law: ScotEq.
July 5, 2004... by emma Ann Hughes THE success of a cash alternative to pensions could force the government to make retirement saving compulsory. According to Rachel Vahey, manager of pensions development at Scottish Equitable, if offering cash as an...

Number of IPOs bodes well for UK economy.
July 5, 2004... INCREASED IPO activity is an encouraging sign for UK investors, according to economists at Legal & General. Four new initial public offerings took the number of flotations in 2004 to seven, as opposed to two at this time last year. ...

Investec to extend its Pep and Isa switch deal.
July 5, 2004... Investec has extended its 4 per cent commission offer for Pep and Isa transfers to two of its funds. Investors will also receive a 0.5 per cent discount on transfers to the AGBP224.2m Investec Cautious Managed fund and the AGBP26.7m...

Isis' Talbut first to go in F&C merger.
July 5, 2004... by nigel davies Isis' chief investment officer Robert Talbut has become the first high profile casualty following the firm's reverse takeover of F&C. Mr Talbut, who manages the AGBP10.5m Isis Managed Distribution fund, will stay with...

Cazenove well placed for Asia desk.
July 5, 2004... By Dewi John Cazenove's small team approach is well positioned for setting up an Asian desk, according to its chief executive officer. Andrew Ross, who took the position as chief executive of Cazenove Fund Management on October 2001,...

Equities in wilderness until 2008: Hargreaves.
July 5, 2004... By Holly Thomas Investor confidence hit an all-time low last month since the market rally in March 2003, according to IFA Hargreaves Lansdown. The Hargreaves Lansdown Investor Confidence index painted a gloomy picture with June...

IFA model is best, says Ross.
July 5, 2004... The IFA model is better than stockbrokers at servicing client needs, claims Andrew Ross. Mr Ross, chief executive of the fund management arm of the Queen's stockbroker, said: "The IFA model is precisely the way that money should be run:...

Industry gets behind NAV calculation swap.
July 5, 2004... by nigel davies Fund managers have hailed as a positive step new methods of calculating net asset values proposed by the AITC. The Association of Investment Trust Companies will change the way that new asset values have been calculated...

Global Growth trusts will shun US assets, says AITC.
July 5, 2004... by simoney girard The love affair with the US may be over for Global Growth investment trusts, according to figures from the AITC. Latest research from the Association of Investment Trust Companies said several of the 28 trusts in the...

Baring pair quit running its Europe Select fund.
July 5, 2004... Baring is standing by the process of its small-cap European fund despite the departure of its fund managers. Baring Asset Management announced that Maria Polycarporou and Silvia Wendlinger would leave the AGBP180.3m Baring Europe Select...

North Atlantic's tech stocks appeal to Killik.
July 5, 2004... Killik Research has recommended the North Atlantic Smaller Companies trust following the strong performance of tech stocks. Mike Gilligan, associate director of research at Killik, said that the AGBP168.78m trust, run by JO Hambro Capital...

Portfolio Challenge set to roll.
July 5, 2004... Investment Adviser's Fantasy Portfolio Challenge has closed its doors to new entrants. Portfolios are now fully invested -- AGBP100,000 in each -- across the four categories: balanced, cautious, aggressive and ethical. About 450 IFAs...

Flexibility in gearing is set to aid SVM Active.
July 5, 2004... Tactical use of hedging and gearing will minimise risk to SVM's renamed UK Active fund, according to its manager. Switch from being called the Undervalued Asset trust, under its new guise, manager Colin McLean will have the ability to gear...

Popularity fears over short-term annuities.
July 5, 2004... SHORT-TERM annuities could prove popular for all the wrong reasons, according to Scottish Equitable. Stewart Ritchie, pensions development director at Scottish Equitable, said short-term annuities could take off under a single pension tax...

Delay in annuity purchase for rate rise unwise: CIM.
July 5, 2004... DELAYING an annuity purchase in the hope of an interest rate rise is unwise, says Chartwell Investment Management. The Bath-based IFA claimed investors who believed that putting off purchasing an annuity would result in a much higher income...

L&G offers protection at start on Plus 5 plan.
July 5, 2004... Legal & General has launched a structured product with capital protection at maturity. The Capital Protection Plus 5 plan gives investors a minimum return of 23 per cent over the six-year investment term of the plan. Returns are also...

Greenwood set to turn to private equity area.
July 5, 2004... The Iimia investment trust will look increasingly at private equity trusts and venture capital trusts, according to its manager. Nick Greenwood, manager of the AGBP19.9m trust, said: "Private equity is an area which is beginning to look...

Sentiment turns from property, says Ample.
July 5, 2004... Sentiment over property's investment prospects has faltered over the last month as interest rate rises have taken effect. According to fund supermarket Ample there was a drop of five percentage points in investor confidence during May. This...

US rate rise adds more pressure to govt bonds.
July 5, 2004... by ed monk The rise in US rates has hit bond markets, with yields on 10-year Treasuries expected to reach 5 per cent by September as their values fell. The US Federal Open Markets Committee raised US interest rates to 1.25 per cent...

Bank warns of 'financial distress' in quest for yield.
July 5, 2004... by simoney girard Hedge funds, high-yield bond managers and users of structured credit products chasing returns down the credit spectrum may cause "financial distress", the Bank of England has warned. The catalyst for this was...

Butterfield opens pension options.
July 5, 2004... by emma ann Hughes BUTTERFIELD Private Bank is to launch two self-invested personal pensions, offering access to the full range of approved investments. The Premier Trust and Flexible Sipps will be made available to IFAs and their...

FOS split claims to work outside the FSA's probe.
July 5, 2004... by james coney THE financial ombudsman believes split cap compensation claims would have no knock-on effect on the FSA probe. Chief ombudsman Walter Merricks said that the Financial Ombudsman Service had to be careful with the split...

Learn from mistakes in the US, says FSA.
July 5, 2004... ASSET managers have a challenge on their hands to retain consumer confidence in fund governance, the FSA has warned. Managers were told that the UK asset management sector needed to take heed from scandals, such as market timing, that were...

Precipices claim another IFA.
July 5, 2004... Whitechurch Investment Services is to go into liquidation at the end of this week, making it the latest mis-selling casualty. The direct selling arm of Whitechurch Securities set up in 1995 will go into liquidation from 9 July following the...

VCF acquires brace of VCTs.
July 5, 2004... By James Coney A TECHNOLOGY investment firm has scooped two venture capital trusts and their managers from a rival business. VCF Partners has acquired two VCTs from Advent Venture Partners in a bid to enlarge its retail business as the...

Close trust to invest in Brunel spin outs.
July 5, 2004... CLOSE Venture Management is to allocate AGBP4.5m of its Venture Capital trust to Brunel University's spin-out companies. About 45 per cent of the AGBP45m trust is to be invested in lower-risk, ungeared, property-based businesses operating...

Low cost developers aid Stick's Spec Sits.
July 5, 2004... Social housing developments have helped the Rathbone Special Situations fund as it reaches its 40th birthday. The AGBP94.3m fund has had a number of previous owners before coming under Rathbone's management in 1999 and yet has performed...

May proves to be bad month as IMA report shows net retail fund sales fall.
July 5, 2004... By Susan butterworth Sales of retail unit trusts and Oeics tumbled in May. While gross retail sales rose, net retail sales of unit trusts and Oeics dropped from AGBP739.4m in May 2003 to AGBP125.7m in May this year, according to data...

Legg banks on Asia boom to recoup cyclical losses.
July 5, 2004... Legg Mason Investment's new Asia Pacific fund is banking on high turnover out of cyclical stocks to improve performance. David Lazenby, director and senior portfolio manager of the Batterymarch emerging markets team, which manages the fund,...

Isis raises risk profile of Strategic Bond fund.
July 5, 2004... by simoney girard Isis is increasing the risk of its AGBP182m Strategic Bond fund, to take advantage of a favourable high-yield environment. James Foster, manager of the fund, said the portfolio was skewed towards the lower-rated bond...

Benefits warning for UK providers.
July 5, 2004... THE FSA has cautioned chief executives against offering indirect benefits as inducements to intermediaries. The UK's leading product providers were told pay-offs to intermediaries in exchange for a place on a panel were inappropriate. ...

FoF range for offshore.
July 5, 2004... Aviva's new Luxembourg-based multi-manager fund is comprised of nine sub-funds across three types of risk-rated portfolios. Initially, the only way into the fund will be through Norwich Union International's Dublin-based bond products. The...

Man follows Close JV with UK retail hedge.
July 5, 2004... by susan butterworth Hedge fund specialist Man Investments plans to launch a hedge fund product aimed at UK retail investors this year. The new product will be similar in style to the Close Man Hedge fund, which in June had raised...

Bonds unaffected by UK rate rises.
July 5, 2004... by nigel Davies Further rises to UK interest rates should not unduly affect the corporate bond market, according to Jupiter's John Hamilton. Mr Hamilton, manager of the AGBP109.2m Jupiter Corporate Bond fund, said that yields had now...

Isis brand to go as firm forms giant with F&C.
July 5, 2004... By IA news team THE combined Isis -- Foreign & Colonial company will create one of the largest asset managers in Europe. However, some observers are concerned over the removal of the Isis brand, on which the firm spent several millions...

Fund managers positioned for decrease in oil price.
July 5, 2004... BY susan butterworth Oil prices have cooled but fund managers remain divided on the outlook for stocks in the sector. London's Brent August crude oil slid to $33.88 a barrel last Tuesday from $35.04 on 25 June, following the handover...

SEI selects Keogh as head of its wealth arm.
July 5, 2004... SEI will look to sharpen its UK business proposition to advisers by appointing a head of its wealth division. Chris Keogh has assumed the newly-created managing director position of the wealth division of the adviser outsourcing firm. His...

Decoupled from Asia, Japan increases growth.
July 5, 2004... By nigel davies JAPAN'S decreasing reliance on exports and its burgeoning domestic market have helped decouple it from the rest of Asia. This has occurred as the latter's strong performance was reversed. Over the past few years...

Ethical gains more ground.
July 5, 2004... Investment Adviser: Can you tell us something about the origin of ethical funds in the UK? Ted Scott: We were the first fund to launch an ethical in 1984, called the Stewardship Growth Fund. We followed it with launch of the Stewardship...

Isis, Schroder pair trust in Shell.
July 5, 2004... Two fund managers have upped their exposure to oil giant Shell. Michael Gifford, manager of the Isis AGBP250.2m Equity Income fund and Isis AGBP15.7m Growth and Income funds, lifted exposure to Shell by 0.5 per cent to 5 per cent in each...

All fun and games in the office.
July 5, 2004... Leigh Himsworth, fund manager at BWD Rensburg, was recently being interviewed on the phone by an ardent IA hack. As any fund manager would do, Leigh was conscientiously answering the questions, drawing a nice and healthy picture of his fund....

One is the loneliest number...
July 5, 2004... Cazenove's Europe guru Chris Rice created a degree of excitement -- with this scribe at least -- with the announcement from the Senate platform that he was to pilot a new aggressive fund for the asset manager. It would, he said, be a high...

SLI props up parent firm's profits.
July 5, 2004... STANDARD Life Investments bolstered business of its Edinburgh-based parent by reporting a record high for funds under management. The investment arm of Standard Life reported the second highest interim sales figures since the firm was...

A different kind of table manners.
July 5, 2004... Well the folks at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership are jolly chaps indeed. For who could better a recent formal dinner table entertainment than Diary's hosts, whom Diary shall call Ryan and Steve from Swip? The Mr Potato heads made out of...

Talbut is first Isis' casualty.
July 5, 2004... lContinued from page 1 "Nick Criticos, co-head of retail business at the enlarged group, will begin the job next week of putting a new structure in place. There will be changes to be made down the line, but as there are not many overlaps...

Murder on the bond floor?
July 5, 2004... The adage that "bonds are boring" has been overturned recently, as investment professionals ponder their fate in the brave new world of rising interest rates. Some figures worth considering: the UK Corporate Bond market was the second biggest...

Ensuring the hedges stay well oiled.
July 5, 2004... The Bank of England warned last week that rising interest rates could provoke "financial distress" if investors suddenly disinvested from hedge funds. The warning on the riskiness of hedges would have carried more weight if it had not been...

Needle team waits on rate rise verdict.
July 5, 2004... One of the most popular of the blended corporate bond funds has been the Threadneedle Strategic Bond fund. It was one of the first to offer a more managed bond fund style balancing high yield with investment grade. So successful has been the...

Close eyes commercial properties.
July 5, 2004... CLOSE Property Investment has launched a commercial property fund. It plans to raise AGBP6m of equity through the launch of its fifth Special Opportunities fund and to add a similar amount of debt. The fund aims to return 15 per cent...

Keep the experts close at the ready.
July 5, 2004... How important is it for fund management groups to have in-house analysts? Having interviewed many companies on the subject, I am amazed that there are so many different models. At one extreme, there is the Massachusetts Financial Services,...

NS thinks pink for Property roll out.
July 5, 2004... New Star Asset Management is literally building up sales for its Property unit trust. Having acquired the former Edinburgh Fund Manager property fund from Aberdeen Asset Management in November 2003, New Star is now promoting it among its IFAs....

Never a dull moment.
July 5, 2004... Statistics can be misleading. Take, for example, the FTSE World index, which is virtually unchanged over the quarter that began, perhaps appropriately, on April Fool's Day 2004. Probe just a little beneath the surface, though, and a much...

Micro views boost Japan.
July 5, 2004... I am optimistic about the prospects for Japanese equities. The key reason is to be found by looking at individual firms instead of the macroeconomic picture. Selected higher quality companies are cutting costs and improving their...

We watch and wait.
July 5, 2004... During 1994/95 the Federal Reserve raised US interest rates from 3 per cent to 6 per cent. Bond markets in the US and the UK fell sharply as a consequence. Equity markets also dropped. Not until November 1995 did the FT All-Share index regain...

Tiner looks at burden of rules in FSA report.
July 5, 2004... THE chief executive of the FSA has told how he wants to liberalise the retail financial market. In the annual report of the Financial Services Authority, John Tiner said that he was aware of the regulatory burden on some firms. He...

Large-cap story turns out be an anniversary waltz.
July 5, 2004... Back in March, at around about the one-year anniversary of the turning point in the UK market, I made every effort to inform the industry that it was time to start chopping back on the cyclical exposure of UK portfolios. At the time, the...

Exploring the ladder.
July 5, 2004... How many property programmes have you seen on TV in the past month? From home improvement to how to buy your dream house, our channels are littered with advice on how to get the most out of bricks and mortar. The nation's obsession with...

Optimism joins Europe.
July 5, 2004... With the market largely focused on economic concerns and geopolitical risks, the question is whether improving corporate fundamentals will continue to be ignored. For Europe in particular this means attractive relative stock price...

The wait is over, the reaction starts.
July 5, 2004... Equity markets have been somewhat sluggish in recent weeks, halting some of the rises seen last year and early this year. Given the equities and bonds mix of Asset Allocation UK Neutral, the sector could offer investors shelter from increased...

Slow progress for markets.
July 5, 2004... By Shaista Ahmed The year so far has been something of a mixed bag for equity markets. The markets reached two highs before dropping and picking up once again in April. The weak phase has been something of a wake-up call for those in...

manager comment.
July 5, 2004... I HAVE run the fund of funds trust since July 2001 after taking over from Robin Thompson, who retired through ill health. We run London York Asset Management from what some might see as the "backwater" of York. We are only a small team,...

Gently does it for UK equities.
July 5, 2004... UK equities have made sedate progress over 2004 so far, producing a performance of 1.3 per cent on a total return basis, according to Deutsche Bank Equity Market Commentary issued on 1 June. Three key factors have combined to keep UK...

Global uncertainty pushes sector down.
July 5, 2004... The UK economy has been in relatively strong footing, buoyed by historically low interest rates, subdued inflation and the strength of the global economy, which has been bolstered by the gradual resurgence in the US. Revised GDP figures...

Diversification is key to long-term performance.
July 5, 2004... The AGBP4.1m CF London York Select Income Trust was launched in January 2000. The trust, which is a fund of funds benchmarked against the Apcims Income index, aims at offering a combination of high income and modest capital growth. Over...

Sector outperformance for Aberdeen merger fund.
July 5, 2004... by John foster THE AGBP115.8m Aberdeen Emerging Markets fund was created on 24 July 2003 when the Emerging Markets Unit Trust gained Oeic status and had the Latin American Unit Trust and Frontier Markets Unit Trust rolled into it. The...

Lincoln trust follows trends.
July 5, 2004... The AGBP23m Lincoln Emerging Markets trust was launched on 8 June 2004. Delaware International Advisers -- Dial -- currently part of Delaware Investments, the fund management arm of the Lincoln National Corporation, manages the fund. Dial is...

Top performing Japan fund opens to investors.
July 5, 2004... By Ed Monk THE BDT Invest Japanese Smaller Companies fund is to reopen to new money on 5 July after closing on its launch day. The AGBP19.6m fund was launched on 9 February following a marketing period in which UK-based boutique BDT...

Hargreave to run VCT for Keydata.
July 5, 2004... Keydata has appointed Marlborough's small-cap fund manager Giles Hargreave to run its new Aim venture capital trust. Mr Hargreave, who also manages the top-performing AGBP49.3m Marlborough Special Situations fund, will act as investment...

Finding a worthwhile needle in the neutral haystack.
July 5, 2004... Here is another new Standard & Poor's sector classification, which also breaks down the huge number of managed funds into sub-groups based on geographical mandate and flexibility. Within the UK mandate there are now separate classifications for...

Under-achievers targeted in Credit Agricole launch.
July 5, 2004... By Nigel Davies CREDIT Agricole will look to invest in underachieving firms and those showing strong upward trends for its latest offshore funds. The French asset management group has launched two sub-funds of its Luxembourg-based...

Lincoln bond opens door to multi-manager sector.
July 12, 2004... LINCOLN has entered the multi-manager market with a best-of-breed bond that gives smaller investors access to institutional fund managers. The Lincoln manager of managers investment bond will be launched to IFAs this Thursday and is aimed...

Trust manager quits Britannic.
July 12, 2004... Roddy Davidson, manager of the AGBP74.2m Britannic Smaller Companies trust, has left the company to join banking firm Altium Capital. Mr Davidson handed his resignation to the board of the trust last week, and an announcement was made to...

Drop in size pays off for Merrill Continental fund.
July 12, 2004... Merrill Lynch Investment Managers has seen the sector ranking of its AGBP161.2m Continental European fund improve. This follows a reduction in the portfolio size and change in management. Manager Alice Gaskell said it had raised its...

Dynamic's future is in hands of investors.
July 12, 2004... Investors will decide the future of Insight Investment's UK Dynamic fund within the next few weeks. Insight announced the planned closure of the AGBP36.7m fund at the end of May as part of a shake-up of its UK team, and is now writing to...

Manager's stocks cut call boosts Needle's American.
July 12, 2004... A reduction in the number of stocks in Threadneedle's American Growth fund has helped performance, according to its manager. Andrew Holliman, manager of the AGBP681.1m fund since March, said that the number of holdings had been reduced in...

3i set to tender trio's mandates.
July 12, 2004... Private equity investment group 3i put the management mandate for its three retail investment trusts up for sale last week. The firm announced it was looking to dispose of its quoted fund management activities relating to the 3i AGBP15m...