Morgan Stanley confirmed our expectations this week and announced that star manager Hassan Elmasry will be taking his team with him when he leaves later this year to start his own firm. Investors did get one piece of good news, however: Elmasry's departure date has been extended until 15 June; the firm had previously said he would leave at the end of April. This is a significant blow to investors in the funds he manages. Click here for more on this story.
Schroder US Small and Mid Cap gets a name change.
The name of the Schroder US Small and Mid Cap fund will be changed to the simpler Schroder US Mid Cap (on 1 June 2009) to better reflect the strategy applied by manager Jenny Jones. The change also helps investors differentiate it from her other charge, Schroder US Smaller Companies, which is currently closed to new investors. On the newly named US Mid Cap fund, Jones and her team focus on stocks whose market caps are between $1bn and $7bn in market capitalization while the universe of stocks for the dedicated small-cap offering is $500 million to $2.2 billion in market cap. This does lead to around 25% commonality in stocks of the two funds but it should not change the way Jones currently manages the fund and we expect the overlap in holdings to remain despite the change in name.
Newton names new manager at Newton Global Opportunities.
In light of Alex Stanic’s departure to River and Mercantile, Newton have announced that Robert Hay will be the new manager of Newton Global Opportunities. Hay previously managed the Newton Falcon fund, a global equity product run for Newton’s discretionary private clients. Having been at the helm of that fund for the past five years, Hay is has already been working closely with the global equity team at Newton. Hay was also the alternate manager on Newton Balanced Bridge, another fund run for private clients. He will now formally join the global equity desk alongside Jon Bell, James Harries and Paul Markham. Although Hay has not run a retail offering before, Newton have experience of transiting managers into the retail space, as they did with James Harries who currently manages the Newton Global Higher Income fund. Harries also managed the Newton Falcon fund until 2004. Although Stanic’s departure is a great loss, we think Newton’s investment staff structure helps provide some continuity for fund investors when managers leave the firm.
New Star’s James Gledhill Joins Henderson.
New Star’s current head of fixed income, James Gledhill, has agreed to join the retail bond team of John Patullo and Jenna Barnard at Henderson Global Investors. Pattullo – director of fixed income at Henderson - and Barnard co-manage the Henderson Strategic Bond and Henderson Preference & Bond fund. Gledhill currently manages New Star Fixed Interest, New Star High Yield Bond and New Star Extra High Yield Bond funds although it is unclear whether the fund will be merged into Henderson’s current fixed income range.
JP Morgan launches bond funds for ex-Schroders team.
JP Morgan will launch a new range of bond funds for the fixed income team led by Bob Michele, the global CIO for fixed income. The team – which was hired from Schroders last year – will run five new Luxembourg-domiciled funds which will be available for sale across Europe. Lisa Coleman – previously the head of global credit strategies at Schroders - is managing the JPM European Corporate Bond and JPM Global Corporate Bond funds. David Tan will run the three remaining funds; JPM Global Government Bond, JPM Global Government Short Duration Bond fund and JPM Euro Government Short Duration Bond fund. The corporate bond offerings will hone in on undervalued global investment grade corporate bonds while the government bond products will invest in fixed and floating bonds from investment grade companies.
Liontrust poaches fixed income team from Ilex.
Liontrust Asset Management has hired the European fixed income team from Ilex Asset Management. The team - consisting of Simon Thorp, James Sclater, Paul Owens, Quentin Peacock and Gareth Roblin – manage the Cayman Islands-domiciled long/short Ilex Credit Fund. Given that Liontrust have hired the entire team that runs the fund, the firm have also entered an agreement with acquire the investment management contract for the fund from Ilex. The hiring of this team is part of Liontrust’s long term strategy to widen the range of their product offerings.
Morningstar qualitative ratings and reports issued this week.
Morningstar issued new qualitative ratings and reports on a number of funds available to UK investors this week, including First State Global Opportunities, Rensburg UK Smaller Companies, Fidelity American Special Situations, Legg Mason Value, and Artemis UK Smaller Companies.
