By MARCEL PORCHERON 19/03/2009
Sanjeev Shah, has had a good first year at the helm, beating the FTSE All Share index by 5% during 2008. Whilst he had a promising track record when he took over control of the fund from Anthony Bolton, we initially advised investors to take a cautious approach when considering new investments.
However, performance has been good during a difficult period in the UK market, whilst other managers have faltered. Sanjeev now has a four year track record in the UK All Companies sector over which he has beaten the index by more than a cumulative 20%. His Bestinvest MRI is 98.4% suggesting that it is highly likely that he is adding value.
We have also obtained full disclosure of portfolio activity giving greater confidence that Sanjeev is adding value through his decisions. The fund is diversified by underlying stock with more than 130 held in the portfolio and although the emphasis remains on buying the shares of companies that are attractive the manager is also using derivatives to help him outperform the market.
Shah is potentially well positioned to outperform in future because of his contrarian investment style, which can lead to both value and growth opportunities in the portfolio, and his tentative use of derivatives. He is currently overweight consumer services and banks and underweight resource stocks.
As such we have upgraded this fund to 3 Stars.