Double tops for SLI funds

Standard Life Investments kicked off the New Year by welcoming the news that two of its mutual funds had topped their respective peer groups in 2006.

The UK Smaller Companies Fund was the best performing UK Equity and Smaller Companies Equity Fund and the Dynamic Distribution Fund has been first, since launch on 14th February 2006, in the Cautions Managed Fund sector.

Jacquie Kerr, Head of Mutual Fund Investments at Standard Life Investments said: “2006 was another year of strong performance for Standard life Investments range of retail OEICs and Unit Trusts with 74% of our 23 actively managed funds producing above average returns and 52% of them delivering upper quartile returns. The fact that 9 of our 23 OEIC funds obtained a top ten rank is an outstanding achievement. To have two of our funds ‘best in class’ is particularly pleasing with the UK Smaller Companies Fund, and the Dynamic Distribution funds producing returns of 43.5% and 11.3% respectively, this is 19.9% and 6.5% more than the average of their relevant peer groups.

“Other UK funds that performed well were the UK Unconstrained Fund (2nd), the UK Opportunities fund (5th), both of which were top decile in the UK All Companies sector, and the UK Ethical Fund (22nd) which was top quartile.

“It wasn’t just in UK Equity space where the talents of the investment team were apparent as we secured a 6th place for the Select Property Fund in the Specialist sector and a 6th place for our Higher Income Fund in the Other Bond sector. The European Equity Growth and the Managed Fund both achieved 9th place in their sectors.

“I am pleased that there is increasing awareness of the strong performance across our fund range and this is testament to the skills of our people, sound processes and ‘focus on change’ investment philosophy.”