Fund Times: 14 – 18 April

Investec launches Africa Middle East fund; Invesco Perpetual to merge US funds; Callaghan steps down from Gartmore European offerings; Lyxor launch four more ETFs; Global hedge fund assets rise 27% in 2007; Brown Advisory launches US Small Cap Growth fund; and Fidelity unveils new Multi-manager line-up

Tom Whitelaw 18 April, 2008 | 2:58PM
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Investec Launches Africa Middle East Fund
Following closely in the footsteps of their competitors (see Fund Times 31 March – 4 April) Investec Asset Management are the latest group to launch an Africa Middle East Fund. The Fund will be based offshore and be managed by former JP Morgan EMEA portfolio manager Amr Seif and Investec’s Africa and Pan Africa portfolio manager Roelof Horne, both of whom are members of the groups Frontier investment team. The Africa Middle East Fund will invest across the entire African continent, and the Middle East including Gulf countries. The universe will span roughly 25 countrie

s.

Invesco Perpetual to Merge US Funds
In a bid to reinvigorate its US equity business Invesco Perpetual plan to merge the Invesco Perpetual US Aggressive and Invesco Perpetual US Smaller Companies funds with the larger Invesco Perpetual US Equity fund. Invesco put Andrew Shard in charge of all three offerings two months ago, and he will now be in charge of the amalgamated fund. Invesco’s three US funds have struggled in recent years underperforming their corresponding Morningstar category’s by between 10% and 17% in the last 12 months alone. The change is set to take place on 23 May.

Callaghan Steps Down from Gartmore European Offerings
Gartmore partner Tim Callaghan has stepped down from the management of Gartmore European Growth and European Focus funds. Callaghan had run the funds for almost two and three years respectively. The funds trailed the Morningstar Europe ex-UK Large Cap category by almost 3% in 2007. The funds under Callaghan also lost ground in 2006 after previous strong performance. The head of Gartmore’s European team has taken over control of the funds on an interim basis.

Lyxor Launch Four More ETFs
Lyxor Asset Management has launched four new emerging markets exchange traded funds (ETFs) onto the London Stock Exchange. The four new funds will invest in Korea, Hong Kong, Turkey and Eastern Europe, and have annual TERs of between 0.5% and 0.65%, injecting some much needed price competition into the Emerging Markets fund arena.

Global Hedge Fund Assets Rise 27% in 2007
Despite the impact of the credit crunch global hedge fund assets grew by 27% in 2007 according to data group HedgeFund Intelligence. This means that hedge funds now control over $2.6 trillion globally, after assets grew from $2.079 trillion last year. The group note that the credit crunch led to marked slowdown in the industry's rate of growth in the second half of the year as it impacted investor appetites. Nevertheless, assets still grew 6.6% from July to year end 2007.

Brown Advisory Launches US Small Cap Growth Fund
US firm Brown Advisory, which launched a US Large-Cap Value fund as a Dublin UCITS offering in 2006, has launched a new fund in the range: US Smaller Companies. The fund will be run by Timothy Hathaway and Christopher Berrier, who have managed a version of the strategy in the US since September 2005 with strong results thus far. In a previous version of Fund Times, we included a fund in our assessment of the firm's record which the firm does not manage in-house. The story should have said that as of 29 February (the data cited in the original article) two of three funds run in-house had failed to beat their median Morningstar peers over the past five years. Updated figures through the end of March now show two of the firm's three in-house equity funds with records of five years or more outperforming their category peers in that span.

Fidelity Unveils New Multi-Manager Line-up
Fidelity International has this week unveiled their new Multi-Manager investment team line-up. The team will be led by Geraldine Stewart, Head of MultiManager Investment at Fidelity. Stewart will also be responsible for the UK equities component. Meanwhile the group has confirmed that Ayesha Akbar will join from Barclays Wealth in June 2008, she will be responsible for Asian and Emerging Markets equities. Elsewhere European equities will be headed by Dermott Whelan, Fixed Income by Eugene Philalithis, US equities and commodities by Nieves Benito and finally Steve Gibson will be in charge of Japan equities for the Multi-Manager team. In addition, three business school graduates have been hired to join the Multi-Manager research team. Fidelity has also stated that Richard Skelt, Head of Multi-Asset Investment in Fidelity’s Investment Solutions Group, will continue to work closely with the Multi-Manager business.

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