By MARCEL PORCHERON 01/06/2006
Aled Smith runs this fund as part of an autonomous global equity team within M&G. The fund's name is the legacy of a previous incarnation prior to Smith’s tenure and it is slightly misleading in that he does not target industry leading companies. Instead Smith and team use Holt to identify companies with an improving rate of return which are undervalued. Opportunities are typically found in companies where returns (based on CFROI from Holt) are improving to above the cost of capital. i.e. these companies are moving from destroying shareholder value to creating it. These may typically be business that were once high margin and high return, which have gone through a period of restructuring so that they are now low margin low return businesses. Investors should note that we prescribe a cautious stance since recent performance has been very strong; portfolio analysis is indicating a great deal of momentum within the stocks held.
Smith has a 3.7 year record in the Global Growth sector and an MRI over that period of 100%. Over 3 years the fund has returned 102.05% against 48.79% for the FTSE All World TR GBP. Over 1 year the fund returned 34.75% against 17.03% and over 6 months 10.32% against 1.05%.
Three Stars awarded