Fund Times: 20 - 24 October
Fund launches at Legal & General, Franklin Templeton, Norwich Union, UBS and Skandia.
Legal & General Investment Management this week announced plans to launch a global absolute return fund. The Diversified Absolute Return Trust is to be managed by the group’s head of asset allocation David North. The fund has the unusual aim of maintaining a low Sortino ratio – which in effect means it will look to avoid negative or downside volatility. No stock specific risks will be taken in the portfolio – instead the manager will get his equity exposure through index or sector plays. The fund is due to launch on 10 November when L&G will initially seed the offering with £50m.
Templeton Launch Funds for Mobius and Brugère-Trélat
Franklin Templeton announced this week that they are to launch four new funds in their Sicav range for Mark Mobius and Philippe Brugère-Trélat. Mobius will be responsible for the new Templeton Asian Smaller Companies fund which will focus on companies with markets caps of under $2bn in the Asia excluding Japan region. Elsewhere on the groups Frontier Markets fund, Mobius will look to invest in countries that do not currently have emerging markets status but which have the potential to get there – he noted Panama, Qatar and the UAE as prime examples.
Brugère-Trélat will run the third new fund, the Franklin Mutual Euroland Fund which will focus on distressed and undervalued companies. Finally the group will also launch Franklin World Perspectives Fund which aims to take advantage of the knowledge of the group’s local expertise across the globe.
Norwich Union Launch New Bond Funds
Norwich Union announced this week that they are to launch two new bond funds. The Norwich Strategic Bond fund will be run by Chris Higham. Higham will have the freedom to invest in a mixture of up to 100% high yield bonds, 50% emerging market debt and up to 80% investment grade bonds within a portfolio of 60 and 80 names. The fund will target a yield of between 8 and 9%.
The second fund, Norwich High Yield, will be managed by Dominic White. White will be allowed to invest in both investment grade and emerging market debt, but the fund’s 50-60 stock portfolio will predominantly consist of investments from European and US high yield markets.
UBS Launches US Growth Fund
UBS Global Asset Management announced this week that they will launch a US Growth fund on November 3. The fund will bring the number of UBS offerings available to UK investor to 15. The fund will be run by Josh Chisari from New York with a portfolio ranging from 35 to 55 stocks.
Skandia Add to UK Range
We reported in last week's Fund Times that Skandia had increased the number of US funds that they planned to launch in the UK from three to five. This week the group have announced that they will also add a technology and a healthcare fund to the new launches. The Skandia Healthcare fund will be managed by Angelica Fatouros from Carnegie Investment’s, while the Skandia Technology will be run by Wellington Management.