Henderson's John Bennett has overhauled the Henderson European Focus trust, introducing more risk into the portfolio through active bets against the benchmark.
The investment trust was formerly managed by Gartmore hedge fund star Roger Guy and had assets under management of about £400m. Bennett took over the portfolio a year ago, and the AUM has since fallen to £100m, leading the board to seek ways to revamp the trust. Bennett has cut holdings by 50% and moved to a more concentrated portfolio, taking adventurous sector bets against the index – the FTSE World Europe ex UK. “The trust had to change in order to survive otherwise it would have been eaten up by arbitrageurs,” he said. “We have moved to take more active sector positions agai...
To continue reading this article...
Join Investment Week for free
Signup and gain exclusive members-only insights - all free of charge!
- Unlimited access to real-time news, analysis and opinion from the investment industry, including the Sustainable Hub covering fund news from the ESG space
- Get ahead of regulatory and technological changes affecting fund management
- Important and breaking news stories selected by the editors delivered straight to your inbox each day
- Weekly members-only newsletter with exclusive opinion pieces from leading industry experts
- Be the first to hear about our extensive events schedule and awards programmes
