JO Hambro Capital soft closes UK Equity Income fund

JO Hambro Capital Management (JOHCM) has soft closed its UK equity income fund after strong recent inflows propelled it to £750 million.

The Citywire Selection listed fund, which is run by Clive Beagles (pictured) and James Lowen,  will remain open to existing fund holders and investment platforms who will be able to continue to invest on their current terms.

New investors would only be able to invest in the fund at 'financially unattractive terms' according to the group.

The fund was the second most popular fund  on the Cofunds Institutional fund sales list in January, and one of six income funds in the top 10.

JOHCM chief executive Gavin Rochussen said: 'Our focus at J O Hambro Capital Management is on performance rather than asset gathering. To that end, we establish caps for all of our funds at launch. In this case, we decided upon a £750 million cap when we launched the JOHCM UK Equity Income Fund in November 2004.

'Capping funds helps us to generate market-leading performance for the long term and protect existing investors’ interests.'

Beagles said: 'We are comfortable with the fund size moving modestly beyond the £750 million level - the fact that the index has risen by over 30% since we established the cap level back in 2004 means we have the headroom to ensure the fund remains nimble and free from liquidity concerns - but we are completely committed to preserving performance and protecting investors’ interests.'

Lowen added: 'We believe the fund’s size relative to others in this sector is a real structural advantage as it enables us to invest across the market cap range, from large to small. Indeed, our small- and mid-cap holdings have made a substantial contribution to the fund’s outperformance over the past six years.'

The fund is top decile over three and five years and placed second out of 72 funds in the UK equity income sector since its launch, according to Lipper.

Over the year to the end of January, it returned 6.32% compared to the FTSE All Share return of 4.17% and the FTSE 350 Higher Yield TR return of 3.92%.