Growing up fast: three year milestone for MM

The F&C Multi Manager Distribution and F&C Multi Manager Cautious funds celebrate their third birthday today having clocked up more than £400m in assets under management.

Launched on the 9 February 2004, the two portfolios made a welcome addition to the existing F&C Multi Manager Balanced Fund and F&C Multi Manager Growth Fund, managed by Richard Philbin, Head of Fund of Funds for F&C. Today the funds collectively bring F&C's fund of funds offering to £798.5m.

"This is an important milestone as some advisers prefer to wait for a three-year track record before supporting a fund. Since launch the Cautious and Distribution portfolios' have managed to deliver strong performance year on year, testament to the success of our Traffic Light Analysis system. As long-term investors, this system allows us to look for funds which display consistency across several different factors. As well as performance, which may seem like the obvious reason to choose one fund over another, the system looks at consistency in terms of a fund's volatility, information ratio, maximum loss, correlation and alpha, which we believe are of equal importance," said Philbin.

"Markets have been rising for the past three years but the stock market crash in 2000 and more recently the correction in May last year, has made investors more receptive towards the importance of asset allocation and more balanced, risk-aware investment strategies. F&C Multi Manager Cautious Fund is able to offer the more cautious investor peace of mind by diversifying across equities and bonds in a broadly equal split, providing a regular income whilst retaining the potential for capital appreciation.

"F&C Multi-Manager Distribution Fund broke new ground as the first fund of fund to incorporate commercial property alongside equities and bonds. This fund, which has a strong income component, has been a hit with advisers looking for an alternative core product to a with profits bond."

F&C Multi Manager Cautious Fund, with £71.1m under management, has returned 37.56% since inception in contrast to 31.84% from its benchmark, the IMA Cautious Managed Sector Median, ranking it first quartile. F&C Multi Manager Distribution, with £332.3m under management, returned 37.44% over the same period and against the same benchmark.