Troy to soft close Brooke's £1bn Trojan Income fund

Troy Asset Management has decided to soft close Citywire AA-rated Francis Brooke's top performing £1 billion Trojan Income fund.

The firm has faciliated the move by raising the minimum investment from £1,000 to £250,000, with an initial charge of 5% for new investors. The changes will take effect from 1 May.

In a statement, Troy stressed there is not a liquidity problem but assets under management in the fund have grown substantially and as a result of this, Brooke (pictured) has been required to spend an increasing amount of time meeting and updating investors.

'Francis sees his first priority as looking after existing investors and managing the assets already entrusted to him. As a result, the decision has been taken to soft close the Trojan Income fund. This is consistent with the soft close of the Trojan fund which took place in April 2011,' Troy said.  

'We do not currently see any liquidity constraints on the manager’s investment process, so this will not affect any existing investors who will be able to add to their holdings, under unchanged terms, should they so wish.'

According to its most recent factsheet, the Trojan fund's biggest sector exposure was to consumer goods at 23% followed by financials at 17%.

Its biggest holding was GlaxoSmithKline at 3.9%, followed by oil giants Shell and BP, which accounted for 3.8% and 3.7% respectively.

The fund yields 4.3% and its impressive total return has seen investors flock to the strategy in recent years. According to Lipper, the fund has returned 45.3% in the three years to 31 January, around 8% better than the return on the benchmark.