F&C to buy Thames River
F&C Asset Management has announced that it has a conditional agreement to acquire the Thames River Capital Group for £53.6 million. Of this, £33.6 million will be paid initially, and the rest is subject to Thames River meeting certain targets by end 2011 and 2012. Thames River, which is an asset management firm with nine investment teams that operate as a collection of independent boutiques, managed £4.2 billion as of 31 March 2010. F&C plans to leave the investment style and culture of Thames River in place after the acquisition. Nevsky Capital LLP, which is tied to Thames River, will not be part of the acquisition. We have a high opinion of the culture at Thames River, and the degree of independence that the various teams have – we have given their multi-manager funds our Superior rating. F&C, on the other hand, has been through significant changes over the last two years, which has impacted performance across its fund range. As long as the teams at Thames River stay in charge of their funds, though, investors shouldn’t be affected.
Guillaume Rambourg returns to Gartmore, and firm hires new fund manager
Gartmore has announced that it has completed its internal investigations on the actions of Guillaume Rambourg, and he will return to work immediately as an investment analyst. The former fund manager was suspended last month under suspicion of breaching internal policies regarding directed trades. Gartmore conducted an internal investigation and believes that no clients suffered losses as a result of any breaches. The investigation did determine that Rambourg breached internal policy regarding directing trades, though. The firm has decided to allow the manager back in a role as an investment analyst researching ideas for the European equity funds. It has provided the FSA with the report from its investigation. They hope that the FSA will reinstate clearance for Rambourg to be reappointed as a fund manager on the European Large Cap team eventually. Additionally, the firm has announced the hire of Darrell O’Dea as a senior fund manager on the European Large Cap team. O’Dea will co-manage all the funds run by this team with Roger Guy. O’Dea has 10 year’ experience in European fund management, and his previous roles include managing the Threadneedle European Select Fund and the Threadneedle Crescendo European hedge fund at Threadneedle Asset Management.
Henderson fund changes
Henderson Global Investors plans to make several changes to its fund range in May 2010 subject to approval. These changes include name changes, fund mergers and objective changes. The proposed mergers are: Henderson Growth & Income fund into the Henderson Higher Income fund; Henderson UK Growth fund into the Henderson UK Alpha fund; Henderson UK Extra Income fund into the Henderson Managed Distribution fund; Henderson Cautious Portfolio Unit Trust into Henderson Multi-Manager Income & Growth fund; Henderson Multi-Manager Growth fund into Henderson Active Portfolio (the joint fund will be called the Henderson Multi-Manager Active fund). In addition the Henderson Global Equity fund will change objective and manager and be renamed the Henderson Global Dividend Income fund. Some other planned name changes are: Henderson Balanced Portfolio to Henderson Multi-Manager Balanced fund; Henderson Tactical Portfolio to Henderson Multi-Manager Tactical fund; Henderson Managed Portfolio to Henderson Multi-manager Managed fund; Henderson Extra High Yield Bond unit trust to Henderson Extra Monthly Income Bond fund; Henderson Fixed Interest unit trust to Henderson Fixed Interest Monthly Income fund and the Henderson High Yield Bond fund to the Henderson High Yield Monthly Income fund.
J P Morgan launches new investment trust
J P Morgan Asset Management launched an investment trust focused on Brazil this week. The JPMorgan Brazil Investment Trust will be managed by Sebastian Luparia and Luis Carrillo. Luparia, who is based in Buenos Aires, joined the firm in 1996 as a Latin American analyst prior to joining the emerging markets equities desk. Co-manager Carrillo is based out of New York. Carrillo heads up the Latin American desk within the emerging markets equity team, and joined the firm in 1998.
J O Hambro launches new emerging markets offering
J O Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) launched a new global emerging markets equities fund on the 27th April. The JOHCM Emerging Markets fund will be part of the firm’s Dublin-based range, and will have both retail and institutional Euro and Sterling share classes. The fund will be managed by Emery Brewer and Dr Ivo Kovachev. Brewer has over 20 years’ investment experience with 15 in emerging markets, which includes 10 years running the Driehaus Capital Management Emerging Markets Growth Fund. Kovachev, who worked with Brewer at Driehaus, joined JOHCM in March 2010. He was also previously CIO at Kinsale Capital Management. The fund will be capped at 1.5 billion – JOHCM frequently caps their funds, which is a practice we like as excessive asset bloat can be detrimental to performance and to existing investors in a fund.
Henderson re-opens property fund
Henderson Global Investors announced that it would re-open its Henderson Indirect Property Fund Europe on April 26th after 70% of the redemption requests on the fund were revoked. The fund was suspended at the start of 2009 at the height of the credit crisis. The fund currently invests in 18 private institutional funds and one business in Europe.
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 Growth and Old Mutual Global Strategic Bond. Click here to see the full list.