RLAM's Varley maintains Toyota overweight

Royal London's David Varley is maintaining his fund's overweight in Toyota Motor Corp.

The £249m Japan Growth trust manager believes the stock cannot fall much further, but has large upside potential. Toyota fell 19.24% to ¥3,315 from 22 January to 5 February, following the news of a $2bn product recall. Before Toyota announced the recall, Varley's stake had a 6.5% weighting, compared to a benchmark position of 5.25%. "Toyota is now very cheap versus its sector and versus its main competitor Honda. It is trading at a price-to-book of 1x compared to Honda on 1.4x," he says. "If Toyota handles the reputational issues well, the stock could perform strongly. It cannot go...