Alec Foster, who has worked in the insurance industry for over 37 years, has managed the fund since it was launched in 1998. He runs a concentrated portfolio that currently stands at 26 holdings.
The portfolio is primarily invested in American companies with the remaining 22.7% held in the UK. For the past few years the manager has largely focused on the property and casualty insurance sectors. They make up about three quarters of the fund.
Mr Foster has recently started buying
into the UK life sector as he thinks it offers good value. Life and health insurers comprise about 14.5% of the fund and bond insurers another 9%.
Over the past year the biggest contributors to the fund’s performance were the two largest holdings: Philadelphia Consolidated and W.R. Berkley, two property and casualty insurance firms.
Both of the companies are run by people who have a significant stake in the ownership of the businesses – a key quality Mr Foster looks for along with company transparency. Mr Foster himself has a large stake in the Hiscox Insurance fund.
Two holdings the manager disposed of in the last six months are AIG and Marsh & McLennan. The two combined accounted for about 5.5% of the fund and he sold them on the announcement of the New York Attorney General’s investigation into the companies. However, Mr Foster says there is a price at which these companies are attractive: “These are not businesses that are going to die and fade and go away like some of the names we’ve seen recently both in the UK and US.
“Simple view of AIG and Marsh Mac to me is that these are big, substantial businesses. Unfortunately at the moment some of the people that have been running them haven’t been suited to running these businesses the way they should have been. That doesn’t mean to say the business is bad. The businesses will be put together again. They’re needed.”