Legal & General UK unit trusts top performing over one year

Legal & General UK Alpha Trust is the top performing unit trust over one year in April and, alongside the Legal & General Growth Trust the two funds are first and second in the UK All Companies sector over the last 12 months according to the latest performance figures from Morningstar.

Both the Legal & General Growth Trust and UK Alpha Trust are ‘high-conviction’ funds consisting around 25 equally weighted stocks. The top performing UK Alpha Trust, managed by Richard Penny, selects stocks from both small to large cap. The Growth Trust, managed by Robert Churchlow, is aimed at the FTSE 350.

Mark Burgess, Head of Active Equity at Legal & General Investment Management said; “I am delighted with the team’s consistent performance. The Growth Trust and the Alpha Trust are our high-performance funds. The Legal & General Investment Management’s position as the biggest investor in the UK stock market gives us unrivalled access to company management. We marry this to a bottom up stock selection process based on a boutique team structure. The team’s thorough analysis combined with our focus on best ideas and conviction investing has been very successful. We have taken big positions that have really delivered. It is all down to consistent good stock selection. The equities team are delivering very good performance across our UK equity range in both retail and institutional sectors. We have the same best ideas focus across other sectors and regions and aim to build our performance here.”

Ben Waterhouse, Legal & General Sales Director Corporate Wealth, commented: “The Growth Trust was restructured to focus on best ideas in 2005 and Robert Churchlow took over the fund in April 2006 and has achieved a five star Standard and Poors rating for consistently picking winners to deliver top quartile performance. The UK Alpha Trust was launched in May 2005, targeted at investors seeking high alpha returns. Our policy of selective active management, pursuing high quality investments across a range of UK market capitalisation companies, is the driving force of the continuing strong performance of our active equity team”