New hire Ashby overhauls underperforming Ignis income fund

Graham Ashby has swapped 20 of the 50 stocks he inherited on the Ignis UK Equity Income fund in favour of stocks he prefers such as BSkyB and Petrofac.

The manager, who landed at Ignis on 14 March, said although he is happy with the broader shape of the portfolio and the level of stock specific risk, he wanted to introduce higher quality names and add overseas exposure. "The fund I inherited was taking a decent amount of risk relative to the index, which is good from my point of view, but I have made lots of changes. I sold 20 stocks and bought another 20 which are high quality in terms of cashflow returns and balance sheets." Ignis announced it was hiring the former LVAM manager Ashby on 9 March to take over the £93m fund from Marti...