Featured Fund

Investment Objective:

Nigel Thomas has run this fund since he joined Framlington in 2002. Nigel adopts a similar strategy that has served him well in previous roles with ABN Amro Asset Management which is now part of Artemis. Nigel runs an unconstrained investment approach across all market cap’s which makes the fund extremely diversified. Nigel’s investment approach is predominantly a bottom up approach of individual stock selection combined with consideration to the overall macro economic environment. Until 2009 the fund had strongly outperformed the UK Mid Cap equity category average in 5 out of 6 calendar years. 2009 saw some relative underperformance due to an underweight position in financials, however, the fund still returned 34% to investors. 2010 also proved to be a very strong year for the fund with an overweight position in industrials working in Nigel’s favour.

Gemini View

This fund has shown consistent long term performance and occupies Gemini’s mid cap space in the managed portfolios. Despite underperformance relative to the benchmark in 2009 the fund has been first or second quartile in most years since Nigel took over the fund. This year the fund started in an extremely difficult environment with the troubles in Libya affecting performance. Since then the fund has picked up and has produced 1st quartile returns over the last 1 year period. We feel that this fund is an excellent choice in a correctly asset allocated portfolio that gives investors further diversification within the UK equity space. This diversification is further enhanced with Nigel’s unconstrained multi cap approach. The Elite rating given by Morningstar demonstrates that it is one of the best UK equity funds in its category that is further backed up by a AAA rating from OBSR.