Category: Multi Asset
■ Investec Diversified Income
This well-managed income fund is run by an experienced team but strangely remains small in size. Manager John Stopford has a straightforward approach, blending what he sees as the most attractive opportunities in equities, high-yield bonds, emerging market debt and listed property and infrastructure.
■ F&C MM Navigator Select
Rob Burdett and Gary Potter need little introduction to multi-manager aficionados but this, their most flexible of mandates, is still a small size. It resides in the IA Flexible Investment sector, where the managers can fully express their views without the need to conform to strict asset allocation or yield parameters.
Category: Specialist
■ Aptus Global Financials
Many investors still regard the financial sector as too difficult to value, even uninvestable, which gives experienced specialists like this fund’s manager, Johnny de la Hey, the opportunity to add significant value over the long term. His experience and the well-resourced team at his disposal could help make the most of this difficult-to-analyse area.
■ Charlemagne Magna Latin American
Clearly Latin America is out of favour with investors right now, but this is a fund to have on the radar when sentiment returns. The team’s approach of carefully analysing businesses across the market spectrum offers investors a sensible, focused way to access the area.
Ben Conway, senior fund manager, Hawksmoor Fund Managers
Category: Equity
■ Henderson Emerging Markets Opps
Henderson has brought in experienced EM investor Glen Finegan, formerly part of the successful team at First State. Having joined in January 2015 Mr Finegan has implemented his favoured “quality at a reasonable price” philosophy with a fund of a manageable size.
■ Fidelity Global Enhanced Income
This is the sister to the equally good Fidelity Global Dividend fund, both run by Dan Roberts, who we rate extremely highly. This vehicle generates a higher level of income via a sophisticated strategy of selling options on the stocks held in the fund – structured intelligently by derivatives expert David Jehan to avoid capping its capital performance.
Category: Absolute Return
■ Jupiter Absolute Return
James Clunie entirely restructured this fund when he took over in September 2013. Since then investors have benefited from the manager’s highly original thinking, profiting from a short on the Chinese currency long before this was consensus, resulting in impressive uncorrelated returns – particularly when equity markets have struggled.
Category: Fixed Income
■ Royal London Short Duration Global High Yield Bond
Azhar Hussain specialises in a niche area of the high-yield bond market – selecting bonds with fewer than three years to maturity but mispriced by the market. These are often smaller issues ignored by the larger fixed income funds. Liquidity is less of an issue given the short average maturity of the portfolio.
