Neil Woodford grabbed headlines again this week with the announcement that his forthcoming Woodford Patient Capital Trust will have a maximum launch size of £800m.
This is up from the previous £500m and reflects the strong interest in the investment trust, which will focus on early-stage and early-growth businesses and has a unique fee structure.
FE Trustnet took a look at what the increase could mean in an article this morning. One thing is clear: if the trust does raise its new maximum, it would be biggest London-listed launch.
That’d be the second record launch in under a year for the manager, following the massive popularity of his open-ended CF Woodford Equity Income fund.
But that’s not all that’s been happening in the funds world this week so we’ve rounded up some of our favourite stories below. From all the FE Trustnet team, have a nice weekend.
Has Mark Barnett really received the credit he deserves?
Senior reporter Alex Paget asked a good question this week: has the financial press and investment industry fully recognised the hard work that Mark Barnett has put in over the past year or so?
While the undoubted talents of Neil Woodford, his former mentor, have been loudly proclaimed by the financial media, FE Alpha Manager Barnett has had a generally successful year under what could have been very challenging conditions.
There were three immediate concerns when he took over Woodford’s flagship funds: how he would cope with the inevitable outflows; the fact he would be running three open-ended funds and four investment trusts; and his ability to run much larger funds than he was used to.
But Paget pointed out: “Despite those outflows and the fact that Barnett has had to do significant amounts of work to put his own stamp on his new funds, he has considerably outperformed.”
“FE data shows Invesco Perpetual Income and High Income have tripled the return of the FTSE All Share since Barnett has been in charge and are among the top 10 performing portfolios in both the IA UK Equity Income and UK All Companies sectors (which combined account for 358 portfolios).”
Performance of funds versus sectors and index since March 2014
Source: FE Analytics
Should investors spend their time looking for “hidden gem” funds?
Reporter Lauren Mason spoke to financial experts about boutique funds this week to find out whether “hidden gems” can be discovered by retail investors as well as multi-asset managers.
Premier Asset Management’s Simon Evan-Cook acknowledged that retail investors can be left out when it comes to opportunities to invest in some of the smaller boutiques, but argued that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
“If I was an individual investor, I might feel slightly aggrieved if I just couldn’t get into a particular fund because it had filled up without being able to get so much a look-in, but I can understand why boutique fund managers are going down that route,” he said.
Axa Wealth’s Adrian Lowcock warned that investors must tread carefully if they decide to pursue boutiques but Momentum’s James Klempster argued that their increase in popularity is ultimately a positive sign.
“People are looking for more ‘boutique-y’ names now and I find that to be a positive sign for consumer sentiments. It shows a return of animal spirit and that people are becoming more daring,” Klempster explained.
Global funds you haven’t had to worry about for years
Consistent outperformance is the dream of most investors so FE Trustnet news editor Gary Jackson took a look at the IA Global sector to see if any members have remained doggedly ahead of the MSCI World over the past three years.
After filtering for funds that have outperformed the index on a three-year view in every single month, just ten members of the 271-strong peer group remained. The list was headed by a tracker and the top two funds focused on the healthcare sector.
Actively managed products covering the whole globe market included Old Mutual Global Equity, Hermes Global Equity and Threadneedle Global Extended Alpha.
Source: FE Analytics
Why “Dr Doom” thinks you shouldn’t get too excited about your Europe fund
FE Trustnet spoke to some financial experts, including ‘Dr Doom’ Nouriel Roubini, who suggested that the market might have got ahead of itself when it comes to Europe.
A report from Roubini Global Economics and ETF Securities said: “We have ratcheted up our forecasts for Europe, where we expect a mild cyclical recovery to persist for a few quarters thanks to monetary stimulus and a bit of good luck.”
“We are seeing a growth improvement in Europe on low rates and low oil prices, but fiscal support and structural reforms are needed to make the recovery more substantial, while a heavy political calendar could spoil the party.”
Roubini isn’t the only investor approaching Europe with caution at the moment. Apollo’s Ryan Hughes believes that QE just isn’t efficient enough to support the market over the longer term and that investors shouldn’t lose sight of Europe’s complex political situation.
Jupiter Asset Management’s best funds under the spotlight: Part 1
Trustnet Direct decided to have a look at which of Jupiter’s funds made its elite list.
Because the Trusnet Direct 100 contains seven of the asset manager’s products, we split the focus into two parts. In the first, we looked in closer detail at Jupiter European, Jupiter European Special Situations, Jupiter Distribution and Jupiter Strategic Bond.
In the second, we looked at the funds from the Jupiter Merlin range that made the list – Growth, Income and Balanced.
