Fund Objective

The fund aims to provide long-term capital growth through investment principally in companies in Europe (excluding the UK).

View on Past Performance

There appears to be a growing suggestion that European markets are no longer worth investing in - that they are fair value rather than cheap. And with economic growth mediocre at best, some commentators suggest that European equities will simply tread water. They might be right - but they are just as likely to be wrong. Equity returns are notoriously difficult to forecast.Our best guess is that the long-term returns from European equities are likely to be in the region of 6% per annum - somewhat better than the returns on offer from bonds or bank deposits. But we don't run a tracker fund; our objective is to outperform the index substantially. This year we achieved our objective by focusing on owning value stocks that are seeing earnings upgrades. This focus has helped us to pick a lot of winners.

Future Expectations

With the majority of Europe's fund managers still thinking safety is the overarching priority, and with the majority of individual investors still having low weightings to equities, we suspect that 2014 will see a continuation of this year's trends. Europe's economies no longer appear to be on the brink of imploding. Growth is not as scarce as it was. Value stocks have a tendency to deliver good returns in these types of conditions.Given that our portfolio is better value than the market in general and that the companies we own are seeing persistent upgrades to profit forecasts, we believe that our fund will do well.

Fund Details