M&G has moved to enforce a 90 day notice period on redemption from its offshore property offering, M&G Property Fund. The notice period, which only affects institutional investors, means that investors who wish to pull money from the fund will have to wait three months after notifying M&G before they are able to withdraw their money. The move is clearly intended to protect the fund from having to unload property quickly in a down market, but it adds further concern regarding the state of the UK property market and the illustrates the risk involved in allowing open-end vehicles to invest prim
arily in illiquid assets such as property.
Barings Adds Fixed Interest Talent
Baring Asset Management added three managers to its fixed-interest team: Christophe Pella, Dagmar Dvorak and Will Nef.
Nef is slated to focus on emerging market debt and high yield mandates, and will work under Ece Urgurtas, Manager of the Baring Emerging Markets Income Fund and Baring High-Yield Bond Fund. Nef joins Barings from F&C Investments, where he was Assistant Fund Manager of Emerging Market Debt Securities. Pella will work with Angelina Cheuh, fixed income and currency manager, and will focus on fixed income targeted return mandates at Barings. Dvorak will join Colin Harte, Manager of the Baring Directional Global Bond Trust and Global Bond Fund, and Toby Nangle, Director of Fixed Income on Global Accounts.
New Star Heart of Africa Launches with £34m
New Star said in a press release that it's new Heart of Africa Fund raised £34 million in its three week launch period. The firm said the fund, which will invest in sub-Saharan Africa excluding South Africa, will be capped at £100 million, a clear nod to the limited liquidity available in the region. The fund's charges are potentially very high, with an estimated TER of 2.19% per annum and up to 20% of any outperformance over its benchmark, which is LIBOR + 3%. It's worth noting that the benchmark is unrelated to African equities and the performance fee is therefore likely to have more to do with how the fund's investable region fares than with the amount of value added by manager Jamie Allsopp. The fund is a high-risk offering and we don't believe most investors need such a targeted vehicle--at least, unless they are sure they can afford to lose whatever money they put into it. New Star joins a growing list of Africa funds: Morningstar currently tracks six Africa focused funds and four funds that invest a combination of Emerging Europe, the Middle East, and Africa that are available in the UK.
Neptune Sells MM Funds to City Financial
Neptune Investment Management has sold its two multi-manager funds to City Financial in order to focus on its single-manager funds. The transaction was completed on 22 November. As a result, Neptune Multimanager Income has been renamed City Financial MultiManager Income and Neptune Multimanager Growth has been renamed City Financial Multimanager Growth. City Financial plans to retain John Husselbee's North Investment Partners as an adviser, but Robin Geffen, who had set the funds' asset allocation policy will no longer have a role at either offering. North was previously a Neptune subsidiary, but Husselbee led a management buy-out of the group from Neptune in October 2007.