Fund Times: 14 - 18 July
Jupiter Adds India Fund to SICAV Range; M&G Extend Global Fund Range; Edward Jones Launches New Cash Offering; Alliance Trust Adds to Investment Team and New Star to Merge Tri-Star Unit Trust.
Following the launch of the India Unit Trust in March of this year, Jupiter has now launched its SICAV counterpart as a sub-fund of Jupiter Global fund. The Jupiter India SICAV has acquired assets from Peninsular South Asia Access fund, run by Avinash Vazirani since July 1995. Vazirani joined Jupiter in 2007 to head the South Asia equity team and will take the helm at this fund alongside the unit trust and the long/short Jupiter Peninsular Alpha fund. Avinash currently manages an unconstrained portfolio of 50 stocks and adopts a bottom-up, growth-at-reasonable-price approach. He also has the scope to invest in other countries in the region. The fund’s minimum investment will be £1,000 with a 5% front-end-load and a hefty 1.78% TER for its retail sterling shares, plus a 15% performance fee. This compares with 5.25% and 1.92% for the unit trust, respectively.
M&G Extend Global Fund Range
M&G has today launched a global equity income fund, M&G Global Dividend, which will leverage the expertise of the firm’s Global Equity team. The fund will be managed by Stuart Rhodes who joined the firm in 2004 and became part of the Global Equity team in March 2005. The fund’s investable universe is global publically traded companies, but the manager specifically looks for companies boasting solid return on capital with attractive dividend growth rates and dividend yields. It will be available for ISA investments and PEP transfers, and has a 4% front-end load and a 1.70% TER on the class A shares. The minimum investment in the fund is £500 for lump sum payments and £10 per month for regular savings.
Edward Jones Launches New Cash Offering
Edward Jones has launched the Edward Jones Premier Cash Fund Shares. The fund invests in short-term securities with high credit quality and returns generated thereof are distributed to investors daily. Also, for tax purposes the returns are gross of tax and treated as an overseas dividend such that a basic rate tax-payer will be liable for a 10% tax; 32.5% for a higher rate payer.
Alliance Trust Adds to Investment Team
Alliance Trust has made three new appointments within its investment team this week. George Renouf was named Investment Strategist, Emma Gilchrist was appointed Property Investment Manager, and Jay Newman was tapped to head the Global Equities team. Renouf joins the firm with 20 years experience in fund management and investment banking. Prior to this appointment, Renouf worked at Cornelia Asset Management for four years as Investment Strategist, contributing to investment strategy and asset allocation within derivatives, commodities, equities, bonds and structured products. Gilchrist was a director at UK Property Consultants Ltd., and previously ran the Royal London Property Unit Trust at Royal London Asset Management, where she was a Senior Fund Manager for 10 years. Newman is relocating from Alliance Trust’s Hong Kong office. He will be based in Dundee and chair the team’s equity strategy meetings. Newman recently took charge of the Premier Alliance Trust Japan Equity in May 2008, which he is running alongside Anthony Muh. The fund struggled in its first year of launch, but its performance has been competitive so far this year. Newman also previously ran international global and balanced mandates at Citigroup Asset Management.
New Star to Merge Tri-Star Unit Trust
New Star will merge its £28m Tri-Star Unit Trust into New Star Cautious Portfolio on 8 August 2008, subject to FSA and investor approval. The fund was only launched recently in July 2006, but has been struggling since. It shed 9.7% of its value in 2007, an exceedingly poor showing relative to its IMA peers and its Morningstar category.
