In July, New Star Investment Funds celebrated its third anniversary, with three quarters of the equity funds launched by the company in the top quartile of their sectors from their respective launch dates to 23 July [1]. Of those funds, five - European Growth, European Leaders, Select Opportunities, UK Alpha and UK Special Situations - were in the top decile. During the three years the company was responsible for 6.65% of net UK retail fund sales while the latest monthly figure - for June 2004 - showed the net retail sales market share percentage at 29.89% [2].
At the end of the month, Hitesh Thakrar arrived from Morley Asset Management to strengthen New Star's technology investment team. Hitesh has 16 years' experience of the technology sector and is recognised as a leading technology analyst. Before working for Morley, he headed the technology research team at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson and had responsibility for more than 50 analysts.
In August, Roger Dossett, former managing director of Estates & General, was recruited to manage the New Star Property Unit Trust's direct property portfolio. He replaced Capital & Counties, which had been running both the fund's direct property portfolio and its listed securities. Roger is a senior property executive with more than 20 years' experience. As part of the move to take the fund's management inhouse, Stephen Whittaker, the New Star UK Growth Fund's manager, became responsible for the fund's equity portfolio.
The following month, the company was named overall winner in the Citywire Team All Stars 2004 Awards in the 'First Tier' category, made up of fund management groups with eight or more qualifying managers. These awards were based on individual fund managers' risk-adjusted performance over the three years to June 2004, with fund management groups compared on a like-for-like basis across 14 Investment Management Association sectors.
Also in September, New Star International celebrated the second anniversary of its New Star Global Investment Funds range of Dublin funds. During the period from inception in August 2002, three of the original six funds - European Growth, Japan Recovery and UK Dynamic - were in the top quartile while the more recently launched Strategic Government Bond Fund was in the top quartile from its inception in June 2003 [3]. The Asia-Pacific region was identified as a major potential area of growth for the Dublin funds and to spearhead the company's expansion plans James Campion was appointed as managing director, Asia Pacific. Before arriving at New Star, James headed the team that built Schroders' retail business in Asia into the unrivalled market leader in the region.
The New Star UK Alpha Fund, managed by Tim Steer from inception, reached its third anniversary in November 2004, showing top decile performance over the three years [4]. The fund also achieved top quartile performance in each of the three discrete years from its launch. By the end of 2004 it had reached £197 million in size.
In the closing weeks of the year, New Star renamed its high-performing fund of funds range to describe more accurately the funds' investment objectives and to reflect better their individual risk profiles. The name changes preceded the announcement of plans for extensive roadshows early in the 2005 ISA season to market the funds to IFAs.
Sources
[1] Lipper Hindsight, mid-to-mid, net income reinvested at 23 July 2004.
[2] IMA (unitrack).
[3] Standard & Poor's, fund base currency, offer-to-offer, gross income, at 13 August 2004.
[4] Lipper, 9 November 2001 to 9 November 2004, total return, net income reinvested, GBP.