Fund Objective

The fund aims to provide long-term capital growth by exploiting special situations. The fund invests principally in UK equities and in companies which are headquartered or have a significant part of their activities in the UK which are quoted on a regulated market outside the UK.

View on Past Performance

November brought a number of results and trading updates. One general comment we would make is that managements are not being helped by the global economy; expectations are tending to be met through self help instead. Furthermore, the list of companies that are striking a more cautious note in their forward-looking statements appears to be getting longer.As you might expect, there was a large element of this self help to be found among the announcements our holdings made in November. Self help was evident in updates from Britvic, Lavendon, QinetiQ, Thomas Cook and Xchanging. In each case, returns are being driven by continued cost control, new business initiatives and improving balance sheets. We expect more of the same.With clouds on the horizon in the shape of reduced monetary stimulus and rising interest rates, we are unlikely to see a rapid pickup in global economic growth. The twin forces of consumer and government spending, which underpinned so much of the West's growth prior to the financial crisis, are unlikely to do so again. So self help is the name of the game.

Fund Details