Fund Times: 22 - 26 February

LGIM launches absolute return funds; Fidelity fires Hong Kong duo; Odey shuts down last Asia focused fund; INSYNERGY joins forces with GAM for China fund; Morningstar qualitative ratings and reports issued this week.

Mark Laidlaw 26 February, 2010 | 3:07PM
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LGIM launches absolute return funds
Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) is launching two new absolute return funds; UK Absolute and European Absolute. The UK fund will be managed by Robert Churchlow while Gavin Launder will be responsible for European Absolute. Both funds are high conviction, use pairs trades and short stocks on which the manager has a negative view. Both funds have an AMC of 1.5% and there is a 20% performance fee of any outperformance of 3 month LIBOR, subject to a high watermark. The performance fee structure strikes us as poor. The funds are charging a full active management fee, and the only point in paying such a high rate is because you expect the manager to outperform. The hurdle also strikes us as far too low.

Fidelity fires Hong Kong duo
Fidelity International announced the dismissal of two Hong Kong based managers after it was determined they had breached the firm’s internal compliance rules. It was widely reported that the managers in question – Kevin Chang and Wilson Wong--who were suspended by the firm last month, had been operating personal trading accounts. The firm has so far refused to elaborate on the factors surrounding the dismissal.  Both Chang and Wilson were veterans of the firm starting as an analysts and working their way up to portfolio managers.

Odey shuts down last Asia focused fund
London based boutique fund manager Odey Asset Management has shut its last remaining Asia related fund after having failed to gain investor traction. The fund was launched in early 2008 and at its peak only had an asset base of $12 million. Manager Vijaya Subramanian left the firm at the beginning of this year and assets were returned to the three remaining external investors this month. 

INSYNERGY joins forces with GAM for China fund
INSYNERGY has announced it has selected GAM to run an absolute returns-focused China fund. The fund will be managed GAM’s Michael Lai and mirror the process used on GAM’s China Equity hedge fund. The fund will look to hold 15-70 stocks, of which 15-60 will be long positions and 0-20 as short positions. The fund’s assets base is to be capped at $250 million, the AMC is 1.25% and a performance fee of 20% is levied on any returns over the hurdle of 3 month LIBOR.

Morningstar qualitative ratings and reports issued this week
Morningstar issued new or updated qualitative ratings and reports on a number of funds available to UK investors this week, including AXA Framlington UK Select Opportunities, Schroder UK Equity, Investec Global Special Situations, Rensburg UK Blue Chip Growth and Rensburg UK Smaller Companies.Click here to see the full list.

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Mark Laidlaw  Mark Laidlaw is a senior analyst, manager research for Morningstar.

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