Investment Trust Insider on the past decade – James Carthew: the constant evolution of investment trusts
A decade ago, when we were emerging from the global financial crisis, I was managing Advance UK Trust and Citywire was just 10 years old. All of this seems like a long time ago now.
Recently, I found a Winterflood daily investment trust list from February 2009 – it’s amazing the stuff you keep! It surprised me how many funds on this list did not exist anymore, and the sheer volume and variety of new launches we have seen over the past 10 years.
I reckon 21 investment companies that had a market value of at least £100 million in February 2009, have since been deemed to be surplus to requirements. Some of these disappearances I had a hand in and I find very little to mourn in the list.
By far the largest to have disappeared was the fund of hedge funds, Dexion Absolute, which went as part of a decimation of the hedge fund sector since 2009. I quite liked Gartmore Irish but it is hard to maintain interest in single country funds through difficult periods. I felt SR Europe, a focused European fund managed by Sloane Robinson, could have turned itself around. Gartmore (later Henderson) Global, managed for many years by Brian O’Neill, had a distinct approach that had a loyal, but unfortunately dwindling, core of followers; it…
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