Fidelity guru Anthony Bolton is returning to day-to-day management with Fidelity announcing details of Fidelity China Special Situations PLC. The offering will be a closed-end fund looking to raise £630 million and list on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The fund will be a diversified portfolio of companies predominately listed in China and Hong Kong. Whilst Bolton’s 28-year record at Fidelity Special Situations speaks for itself, investing in Chinese companies brings with it a whole new set of challenges and he will be under close scrutiny to deliver the goods. The expected offer period is February 26 – April 5 and a targeted listing on April 19. The fund will available to I
SA investors.
Standard Life adds to its US Credit team
Matt Kence will be joining Standard Life Investments (SLI) as a US credit specialist. Kence’s coverage will include a variety of sectors such as metals & mining, autos, energy and technology in the US investment grade and high yield space. He has seven years investment experience and joins from Gannet Welsh & Kotler Investment Management. This is the fourth appoint made by Erland Lochen, Head of US Credit and Global Head of High Yield, since he moved over to Boston from Edinburgh in July 2009. Lochen runs the Superior rated Standard Life Higher Income and we see this latest addition as a sign the team is moving in the right direction with its previously signalled intention to expand the fixed income capabilities at SLI.
GLG Partners unveils hedged version of Japan Core Alpha
GLG is launching a currency hedged version of its impressive GLG Japan CoreAlpha. The fund which receives Morningstar’s highest Qualitative rating of Elite has been run by the impressive duo of Stephen Harker and Neil Edwards since January 2006. The Dublin domiciled hedged version will be offered in three share classes – Euro, Dollar and Sterling. Charges on the hedged share classes will mirror that of the existing UK-domiciled fund – a minimum investment of £1,000 and an AMC of 1.5%.
L&G merges Japan fund into tracker
Keeping on the Japan theme, L&G Investment Management has stated it plans to merge its £34 million L&G Japanese into its £357 million tracker. From a performance perspective the move makes sense. The active fund managed by Andrew Nagele is bottom quartile over both three and five years annualised up to the end of January 2010. At the same time the index offering is second quartile over three years and top quartile over five years over the same timeframe. It’s hard to justify paying for active management when the passive alternative has outshone the fund over all time periods. A consequence of this action is that Nagele and the team will leave the firm.
RLAM moves into Index-Linked Bonds
Royal London Asset Management has boosted its fixed income range with the launch of a Global Index-Linked fund. This type of asset is targeted at providing investors a level of protection against rising inflation. The fund will be managed by George Henderson and will aim to provide excess returns of 1% over the Barclays Government Inflation-Linked Bond Index over a rolling three year period. Typically holding 30-60 securities the fund will be hedged back to Sterling. The minimum investment for retails investors is £1,000 and the AMC will be 0.7% p.a. Our Morningstar Qualitative analysts have met the fixed income team at RLAM recently and will shortly release research on a number of funds offered by the fixed income team.
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 BGF European Focus, BGF European, Cazenove MM Global Ex-UK, Fidelity Funds Sterling Bond, M&G Global Basics, Martin Currie IF Asia Pacific and AXA Rosenberg American. Click here to see the full list.
