By ADRIAN LOWCOCK 18/06/2009
Gartmore announced today that Roger Guy and Guillaume Rambourg will be stepping down from the day to day management of their £1.5 billion flagship fund, Gartmore European Select Opportunities (and the sister fund Gartmore Sicav Continental European) and handing the reigns over to John Bennett. Bennett has resigned from GAM and will join Gartmore in six months time after completing his gardening leave. Guy and Rambourg will remain in place until then.
John Bennett
John Bennett spent the last 16 years at GAM managing the successful GAM Star European Equity and GAM Star Continental European Equity funds. Prior to which he was a Senior Fund Manager at Ivory and Sime, responsible for Continental European equity portfolios. John also has an enviable track record managing European hedge funds and will develop some Pan European products for Gartmore.
Gartmore’s comment
Gartmore Chief Investment Officer Dominic Rossi is confident that the transition will be a smooth one. He says: “The more we looked at John’s funds the more we were convinced in the similarities with Roger and Guillaume. All three managers have a large cap focus and regionally diversified portfolios of around 50-80 stocks. He is benchmark aware and as concerned about risk and reward.”
Bestinvest’s view
The handover will not take place for another six months, so we recommend clients stay invested. Bennett is an extremely reputable manager with a lot of experience under his belt. We look forward to completing our normal due diligence processes and performance analysis in due course. The combination of all three managers’ talent has the potential to prove formidable.
For more information please call our advisers on 020 7189 9999.