Fund Times: 2 - 6 June

Fidelity’s Stavis Takes a Sabbatical; Throgmorton Ditch AXA in Favour of Blackrock's Plackett; Skandia Drop Aberdeen’s Young from £30m Global Best Ideas mandate; SGAM to Restructure UK Equity Range; Charlemagne Capital launch Middle East & North Africa Fund; and Melchior Launch Pakistan Fund

Tom Whitelaw 6 June, 2008 | 4:10PM
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Fidelity’s Stavis takes Sabbatical
Fidelity’s John Stavis will take a six-month sabbatical after 13 years in the industry. Stavis was lead manager on Fidelity Income Plus and Fidelity Growth & Income, and managed a portion of Fidelity Moneybuilder Balanced. His responsibilities on Income Plus will pass to Michael Clark. Clark has 20 years investment experience and has now been at Fidelity for five years. Since September 20

07 he has run an internal equity-income portfolio for Fidelity. The Growth & Income fund along with the equity portion of Moneybuilder Balanced will be transitioned to Matt Siddle on 1 July. After his sabbatical, Stavis expects to return to Fidelity’s investment team, but he will not return to these funds.

Throgmorton Ditch AXA in Favour of Blackrock's Plackett
The investment trust mandate for the Throgmorton Trust will pass to Blackrock’s Richard Plackett after the decision was taken to replace former manager AXA Framlington. Plackett’s Blackrock UK Smaller Companies fund sits at the top of its Morningstar UK Small Cap category for the year to date. It also substantially outperforms over five years, returning over eight percent more than its peers on an annualised basis. AXA Framlington and its predecessors had acted for The Throgmorton Trust since its inception in 1957, but the departure of long standing fund manager Roger Whiteoak created the opportunity for other groups to tender for the mandate..

Skandia Drop Aberdeen’s Young from £30m Global Best Ideas Mandate
Skandia Investment Group this week announced that Treasury Asia Asset Management Limited would take over the £30 million Asian mandate for the Global Best Ideas fund. The appointment means that Aberdeen’s Hugh Young, who previously ran the mandate, will be dropped in favour of Peter Sartori. Skandia say they continue to hold Aberdeen’s Asian capability in very high regard, and that Aberdeen will remain within other Skandia MultiManager funds.

SGAM to Restructure UK Equity Range
Société Générale Asset Management is to rationalise its UK fund range. Subject to shareholder approval SG UK Concentrated will be merged into SG UK Growth which will keep its current investment objectives. SGAM will also merge its UK 350 fund with the SG UK Specialist 350 fund and rename the amalgamated offering SG UK Active 350. Both of these funds will continue to be managed by David Benson.

Charlemagne Capital launch Middle East & North Africa Fund
Charlemagne Capital is the latest in a lengthening line of groups to launch a Middle East and North Africa fund. The Magna MENA Fund will invest in companies that have a significant presence in the Arabic-speaking world. Charlemagne believe that the region can be split into two areas, and will invest in the following locales: Gulf countries including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; and those of North Africa, including Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia. It also includes Jordan and the Lebanon. The fund will launch later this month.

Melchior Launch Pakistan Fund
Dalton Strategic Partnership will launch the Melchior Selected Trust Pakistan Opportunities Fund on 19 June, becoming the latest entrant into higher-risk "frontier" emerging markets. With a tiny free-float capitalisation of just $22 billion in Pakistan's Karachi stock market, and a substantial degree of political risk in the country, we can't see a lot of reason to invest in a vehicle like this that is locked into that market. We would generally prefer a broader vehicle with the flexibility to invest in Pakistan when doing so was advantageous. The fund will have local expertise, however, as it will be advised by KASB Funds, a Karachi-based asset manager that is affiliated with Merrill Lynch/BlackRock. The fund levies a 1.75% AMC (it has not disclosed its TER, which may be higher), and carries a 15% performance fee on any outperformance relative to the KSE 30 index.

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Tom Whitelaw  

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