African Adventure

Fund manager Phil Doel reports a period of buoyant activity on the F&C UK Select Trust plc and F&C UK Opportunities Fund, bringing in some new ideas both of which have strong overseas themes.

Both F&C UK Select Trust and the F&C UK Opportunities Fund adopt strategies of focusing on just 25 investment positions, each of which is equally weighted.

"Diversity of ideas is extremely important when you are running such focused portfolios," explained Doel, "so I avoid having multiple holdings that are closely correlated to the same theme. I've therefore sold my holding in hotel group Millennium & Copthorne and reinvested the proceeds into Dolphin Capital. This company develops high end and integrated holiday resorts in places such as Greece, Cyprus and Turkey, working in conjunction with well known brands such as Starwood and golf course designers such as Jack Nicolaus, Gary Player and Tony Jacklin," said Doel.

Doel believes that the market is not yet properly reflecting the upside potential of Dolphin Capital given the track record of the management team and he notes that: "legislative changes in Greece have the potential to deliver a positive boost to the country's land bank, thereby providing opportunities for businesses involved in development."

Another area where Doel has been making changes is in his choice of oil holdings. He has recently purchased shares in Tullow Oil, an exploration and production company, which has had positive news flow with a significant find this month from its Mahogany well in Ghana.

"Tullow had been languishing but caught my eye because of its exciting exploration programme in the second half of 2007. The company has operations in the UK, Uganda, Namibia, Gabon, Ghana and the Indian subcontinent. We will be looking for further positive news flow during the rest of the year," he concluded.