Santander Equity Income Fund performance improves

Santander Asset Management UK is celebrating a significant improvement in the performance of its Equity Income Fund.

The fund, which is run by Hak Salih, is currently demonstrating first quartile rolling performance over one, three and five years, and, despite the falling market, where fund returns and valuations have inevitably declined across the board, it has consistently outperformed the All Share Index.

Since Hak Salih took over management of the Santander Equity Income Fund in June 2007, he has delivered a consistent and sustainable performance, steadily moving it up the sector ranks and with sufficient gains to improve long term rankings.

The turnaround is part of Santander Asset Management UK's wider business development strategy, which seems to have paid off as it now has almost 50 per cent of its funds outperforming the benchmark and are in the first or second quartile.

Hak Salih, Fund Manager, UK Equity Income, said: "Under difficult market conditions, the challenge for all managers has been to minimise the inevitable decline in fund returns. We were defensively positioned until the fourth quarter of last year and then increased cyclical exposure, which has paid off and delivered good returns for our unit holders in the current year.

"Going forward, we continue to actively seek to benefit from the opportunities that remain evident in the market. We took the opportunity in the downturn to step in quite aggressively into sectors that have seen a rebound in prospects over the last 6 months, in particular banks, house builders and retailers.

John Bearman, Chief Investment Officer, SAM UK, added: "It is important for the business that we demonstrate to the wider audience that we are a credible player in the UK market. Our ambition to expand our proposition into the IFA market means that we need to be consistently delivering good fund performance across the board and the turnaround in the Equity Income Fund is a great example of this".