Fund Times: 12 - 16 January
Liontrust’s Jeremy Lang and William Pattisson step down; Blackrock prepares to launch European Absolute Alpha fund; Fidelity’s Simon Ellis to leave the firm this month; Fund launches, mergers and name changes at Invesco Perpetual; Royal London hire SWIP’s Craig Inches; L&G hands Fixed Interest Trust to Richard Hodges.
Liontrust’s Jeremy Lang and William Pattisson step down
Liontrust has announced that its income and growth manager Jeremy Lang, who runs some 80% of the group’s retail funds, as well as its UK manager William Pattisson are to leave the firm on 11 January 2010. Both are also directors of the firm as well as shareholders. The share price of Liontrust Asset Management was down 37.96% following the news on Wednesday.
Within its retail funds range, Lang runs the firm’s flagship £579m First Income portfolio as well as its £340m First Growth fund while Pattisson manages Liontrust Focus 350 and Liontrust First Large Cap. Lang has managed First Income since the mid 1990s using what has been termed the ‘Lang approach.’ You can read more on this here.
Blackrock prepares to launch European Absolute Alpha fund
Blackrock will launch a European version of Mark Lyttleton’s UK Absolute Alpha fund by the end of the first quarter, subject to FSA approval. Vincent Devlin will manage the fund. Devlin and seven of his colleagues, including team head Nigel Bolton, left SWIP for Blackrock in early 2008. He currently manages Blackrock Continental European, which he took over upon joining Blackrock from SWIP. Although it’s early days for Devlin on board the fund, his performance since taking charge has been impressive. The fund shed 13% while its average peer in the Morningstar Europe Ex-UK Large-Cap category lost a much larger 31% of its value.
Absolute return funds have become especially popular recently as investors try to combat market volatility. However, we have some degree of concern that investors may not understand the complexity of the funds and the risks that may be embedded in their portfolios.
Fidelity’s Simon Ellis to leave the firm this month
Simon Ellis, the managing director of Fidelity’s multi-manager business, will be leaving the firm on the back of consolidation plans. This follows a wave of redundancies taking place in the fund management industry. Ellis joined the multi-manager team in May 2006 from AXA Investment Managers, where he was head of UK retail. The multi-manager team remains under the helm of co-heads Richard Skelt and Geraldine Stewart.
Fund launches, mergers and name changes at Invesco Perpetual
Invesco Perpetual will launch a Global Equity Income fund which combines the best ideas of the UK, European, US, Asian, Japanese and emerging market equity teams. The fund will be unconstrained by geography, sector or market-cap and will be managed by Paul Boyne. Boyne aims to invest with a long-term time horizon, targeting high quality businesses trading at attractive valuations. Boyne joined the firm in September 2008 from Bank of Ireland Asset Management, where he was a director and lead manager of the Global Equity fund. Prior to that, Boyne worked at Morgan Stanley Asset Management for 11 years. When he left the firm he was managing director and senior manager of their $6bn Global Equity product.
Global Equity Income will launch on 27th February and, subject to shareholder approval, will be merged with Invesco Perpetual International Growth fund, which is currently managed by Erik Granade, Chief Investment Officer of Invesco Global Asset Management. The fund has been struggling: For the six years that Granade has been on the helm, it trailed the Morningstar Global Large-Cap Value Equity category average by 2.2 percentage points annualised.
The firm will also change the name and manager of Invesco Perpetual Global Dynamic Theme fund into Invesco Perpetual Global Opportunities, subject to shareholder approval. Paul Boyne will take over from Bob Yerbury and will combine the team’s highest conviction picks in a more compact portfolio of around 50 stocks. Yerbury stepped down from his position as CEO of Invesco Perpetual in mid-2008.
Other funds to be renamed in April 2009 include Invesco Perpetual World Growth Portfolio and Invesco Perpetual World Income which will become Invesco Perpetual Managed Growth and Invesco Managed Income, respectively.
Royal London hire SWIP’s Craig Inches
Royal London Asset Management has appointed Craig Inches on its fixed-interest team. Inches will report to Paul Rayner, head of government bonds, and will be co-manager on gilt and index-linked bond funds. Inches came from SWIP, where he worked for 11 years on a number of fixed-interest funds. These include Scottish Widows UK Index-Linked Tracker – where he outperformed his average Morningstar category peer by 44 basis points per year annualised during his tenure (October 2000 and August 2008). Inches was also Fixed Income Investment Director since 2003.
L&G hands Fixed Interest Trust to Richard Hodges
L&G will replace Malcolm White with Richard Hodges on L&G Fixed Interest Trust next month, as White commences his new role as head of institutional fixed income sales. Hodges also runs L&G Dynamic Bond which launched in April 2007. The fund has had a difficult run since, however, returning 1.8% per annum on an annualised basis, versus a 12.1% return for its average peer in the Morningstar Sterling Global Bond category.
