Fund Objective

Aims to achieve capital appreciation over the medium to longt-term and to produce a level of income yiled in excess of the FTSE All-Share index.

View on Past Performance

We have been cautious in our outlook for the UK economy for some time now and, for the last two or three years, would describe our stance as being at the bearish end of expectations. The credit crunch has made that economic setback worse than it otherwise would have been, and we did not anticipate anything like the scale of problem.

Future Expectations

Indeed, from a financial markets perspective, we are living through momentous times and the implications of the current fragile conditions will be quite negative for the UK economy for the remainder of 2008 and most of 2009.In terms of the UK equity market, valuations are low in our view, and we believe that the FTSE All-Share index is somewhere near a low point.However, that does not mean that there is no further downside in stocks; on the contrary, we believe that there is further downside in individual stocks and in some cases we will see some rather spectacular corporate failures, particularly in consumer facing sectors of the economy.Outside of those sectors, however, we believe that there is a substantial amount of resilience in other areas of the market where valuations are extremely low, and where businesses will navigate their way through these difficult times in good shape.

Fund Details