Vinculum to expand fund range with quadruple launch

Vinculum, the investment boutique founded by former Liontrust chief executive Nigel Legge, is planning to expand its range with the launch of four funds.

The firm launched in 2011 with a ‘no performance – no fee’ proposition, and its inaugural Global Equity fund returned 11.23% in its first year.

Legge said he is aiming to launch Asian, US, Japanese and European equity funds using its proprietary investment process.

Stocks are selected based on audited publicly available financial information, taking no account of valuation or other style biases.

It uses the ‘StockR8’ process developed by Vinculum co-founder Bjarne Jensen to identify companies it deems of the ‘highest economic quality,’ based on their ability to show superior financial and earnings strength over time.

The universe of 65,000 global companies is then screened and whittled down to a portfolio of 50 stocks.

Legge said: ‘This will mean exactly the same process is used for these different funds. Other firms have one process under a manager of their Japan fund, for example, then a different process for their European fund.’

The existing Global Equity fund is currently available on the Standard Life and Novia platforms, and Legge said it will soon be offered via Cofunds, Skandia and Alliance Trust.

The fund has no annual management charge, but an annualised 0.25% operation cost per annum and a quarterly performance fee of 20% of returns above the performance of the MSCI World Total Return index.