Martin Currie steps back from UK in fund business overhaul

The duo have worked alongside each other on European equities for more than 20 years. According to Martin Currie, the $140 million strategy has delivered outstanding performance since its launch in December 2000, returning 92.7% versus a 29.6% decline in the MSCI Europe index over the same period.

The performance of the Japan Absolute Return hedge fund, which is co-managed by Citywire A-rated duo Keith Donaldson and John-Paul Temperley (below), has been just as impressive, returning 87.7% since its launch in June 2000 versus a decline of 39.8% in the Topix.

The Global Resources Strategy fund, launched in October 2003, has grown to $597 million and is co-managed by Chris Butler and Duncan Goodwin. Since launch the fund has returned 8.7% versus a 11.7% gain in the HFRI EH: Energy/Basic Material index US$ index. Over three years the fund has kept losses down to 4.4% versus a 4.8% decline in the benchmark.  

Martin Currie believes it has solid grounds to launch the Newcits platform, pointing out that only half of the managers in the IMA absolute return sector have proven hedge fund capability.

‘We have a very strong and compelling proposition here and have plenty of experience in hedge fund investing. Very few people who offer these products have got the strong architecture to back it up. We believe these funds will be of interest to investors across the market,' Sowerby said.

'Our performance expectations within our long/short equity strategies is to capture two thirds of the upside when markets rise and when markets fall not to lose more than one third.'