The fund aims to provide long term growth by investing in a diversified portfolio of global equity assets. The investment team will maintain a diverse asset mix at country, sector and stock level, with the regional, country and sector weightings within the portfolio being a by-product of the underlying stock exposure.
Global equity markets were generally volatile over February, with US markets in particular continuing their slide. The S&P 500 Index fell by around 3% over the month as the market remained concerned over the prospect of further writedowns from banks. However, Europe ex-UK and Pacific Basin markets were relatively stronger, buoyed by strong commodity and energy prices. On a sector basis, telecoms and financials detracted the most while energy and materials outperformed.The Global Equity Unconstrained Fund returned 2.68% in February, compared to the IMA sector average return of 3.42%. Much of the Fund's performance was attributed to strong stock selection within the energy sector although this was offset slightly by poor selection within telecoms. Elsewhere, Telecom Italia made a negative contribution, on concerns over its proposed dividend cuts, as did our position in auto supplier BorgWarner, on the back of its exposure to consumer spending.However, our holding in Expro International proved beneficial, after the company was rumoured to be an acquisition target, while Finnish-based YIT rebounded on solid fourth-quarter results.Purchases during February included StatoilHydro, following new offshore discoveries, and engineering firm Foster Wheeler, which is seeing continued strength in its new order pipeline. We sold our position in Telecom Italia, after downgrading the group on fears of a dividend cut, and took profits in both MediaTek and Piaggio on concerns over their exposure to weakening consumer spending.
197.90p
