Gartmore Global Focus ready for new challenges

As the Gartmore Global Focus Fund approaches its seventh anniversary at the end of January, the investment terrain has undoubtedly become more challenging.

However, the unconstrained ‘Best Ideas’ Fund has proved capable of delivering successive years of outperformance in rising and falling markets, as well as in growth and value ones. Neil Rogan, head of global equities at Gartmore, and manager of the Gartmore Global Focus Fund the Fund’s manager since its 2001 launch and manager of the Gartmore SICAV Global Focus Fund, believes “the future continues to be bright for unconstrained focus funds, such as the Gartmore Global Focus Fund.”

In making this assertion, Neil highlights a recent study published by Merrill Lynch and Casey, Quirk & Associates, who provide management consulting services exclusively to investment management firms. In the report, ‘The Brave New World: Winning Product Strategies for a Changing Global Market’,it states that, “Aggressive equity products in the US institutional markets have already attracted three times more assets than their merely active counterparts in the last three years.” In Neil’s view, unconstrained focus funds are the vanguard. In another excerpt from the study, Merrill Lynch and Casey Quirk prognosticates that: “Equity portfolios containing fewer issues will continue to see rising demand as investors seek skilled managers who are able to take more risk.” However, a core strand of Neil’s approach is a rigorous sell discipline. A stock will usually be sold if the outlook for the industry or franchise deteriorates, or if the price target is reached, with no compelling reasons to raise that target. Neil comments, “most people would keep a stock if the underlying story hasn’t changed. However, the story has to be still improving for us to keep the stock.”

From the Gartmore Global Focus Fund’s inception in 2001 to end December 2007, the Fund returned 61%, placing the Fund in the top decile. An Associate Member of the UK Society of Investment Professionals, Neil is rated AAA by Citywire. The Gartmore SICAV Global Focus Fund celebrated its third anniversary in October 2007.