Fund Times 29 - 3 July

At last, some price competition in the UK market; Royal London Strategic Growth Trust takes a new name; Skandia launches two passive funds for retail investors; Martin Currie places co-manager on Global strategies; Aberdeen completes Credit Suisse acquisition; UK funds assets under management gains 4% in May.

Chetan Modi 31 July, 2009 | 4:45PM
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At last, some price competition in the UK market.
Following Vanguard’s entry into the UK market some very competitively priced index funds, HSBC announced on Monday 29 June that it will be making significant cuts to its index offerings. The firm says it will cut the annual management charge on seven index trackers to just 25 basis points. We think this price competition is great news for UK investors. For more on this story, click here.

Royal London Strategic Growth Trust takes a new name.
Royal London Asset Management has decided to chan

ge the name of its UK Strategic Growth Trust to the Royal London UK Mid-Cap Growth Trust. The rationale for doing so is that the new name better reflects the fund’s strategy. Manager Leigh Himsworth targets undervalued stocks that have a catalyst for growth, which could lead to an upwards re-rating, and he has typically looked for such opportunities in the mid-cap arena. Indeed, since the fund was launched in June 2006 it has been camped to the Morningstar UK Mid Cap equity category and the portfolio’s market cap exposure has remained fairly consistent, even during the market downturn when many managers went defensive and climbed up the market cap ladder.

Skandia launches two passive funds for retail investors.
Skandia has announced it is launching two passive funds which will be made available for sale to UK retail investors following, as the firm says, a noticeable demand for such products. Skandia UK Index and Skandia Gilt, which were launched on 26 June 2009, can be bought through Skandia’s Investment Solutions platform, its life and pension fund ranges and directly from Skandia Investment Management. Skandia UK Index has been run by Barclays Global investors since 2004 and has a TER of 0.47% while Skandia UK Gilt – managed by Panayotis Ferenedinos since 2002 – carries a TER of 0.72%. These were launched back in May--where di you find something saying they launched now?

Martin Currie places co-manager on Global strategies.
Alan Porter has been promoted to co-manager of its Global and Global Alpha retail funds with effect from 1 July 2009 and will work alongside James Fairweather. Porter joined the global team at Martin Currie in September 2008 as a senior member with 17 years experience in global equity markets.

Aberdeen completes Credit Suisse acquisition.
Aberdeen has officially completed the acquisition of Credit Suisse Asset Management. Given Aberdeen’s closing share price of 124 pence on 30 June 2009, the transaction was valued at £297.6 million. The deal expands Aberdeen’s fixed income and money market capabilities in particular and the combined group will now have assets under management of £133.1 billion, as of 31 May 2009.

UK funds assets under management gains 4% in May
UK domiciled funds' assets under management rose by 4% between May and June 2009 to total £391.3 billion according to the latest figures from the IMA, the trade association that promotes the business interests of UK asset managers. This reflects the favourable market movements since March and signs of investors willing to take some risk again. That said, the best selling sector for UK-domiciled funds was, for the seventh month in a row, the Sterling Corporate Bond sector which saw inflows of £717.9 million during the month.

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 Fidelity Special Situations, Martin Currie Global Alpha and Fidelity MoneyBuilder Growth. Click here to see the full list.

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Chetan Modi  is a fund analyst at Morningstar OBSR.

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