SWIP UK Advantage Fund achieves S&P AA rating

The SWIP UK Advantage fund has been awarded an AA rating by Standard & Poor's (S&P) Fund Management Ratings.

The fund, managed by Peter Cockburn, was rated on its consistent above-average returns compared to parallel funds. The SWIP UK Advantage fund has achieved an excellent performance track record, producing top quartile returns over the last year and top decile performance over three and five years. The strong performance of the SWIP UK Advantage fund has been achieved through strong stock selection and an active strategy of finding companies which have a competitive edge in the markets in which they operate.

Peter Cockburn, Fund Manager of the SWIP UK Advantage Fund comments: "The S&P ratings awards are industry recognised accolades and this recent award for the SWIP UK Advantage fund reaffirms the value of our bottom-up stock picking investment process."

SWIP's key to stock selection is its fundamental in-house research which identifies the true long-term worth of an asset. The SWIP UK Equity team builds detailed company specific models that forecast profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow over five years, enabling the team to evaluate a company's prospects throughout the course of an economic cycle.

Peter Cockburn continues: "We run a portfolio of high conviction stocks which represent our long-term best ideas. The portfolio includes a core of stocks exposed to structural growth, such as KSK Power Ventur and Great Eastern Energy, both of which look set to benefit from the growing demand for energy in emerging markets. It also contains a number of companies that we perceive as long term winners in their respective industries, names such as Berkeley Group, Xstrata and Hardy Oil & Gas. Finally, increased market volatility over recent months has provided an opportunity to take advantage of shorter term valuation anomalies and transactions in this area have added to Fund returns."

Tony Maddock, Head of Retail Sales at SWIP adds: "It is great news that S&P have further recognised SWIP's capability in managing UK equities. This achievement reaffirms that SWIP's UK equity team and investment process is one of the most highly regarded in the market place."