Direct investors flock to new launches

Artemis Strategic Assets, Cazenove Absolute UK Dynamic and Jupiter Absolute Return made the top 10 bestseller list through Hargreaves Lansdown’s direct to consumer Vantage platform for the whole of 2009.

Hargreaves has been a vocal supporter of William Littlewood’s Artemis Strategic Assets fund which reached £297.4m in size at 30 November 2009, despite only launching in May last year.

Jupiter’s launch of an Absolute Return fund for financials manager Philip Gibbs was also very well received by investors with the fund taking £244m overall during its launch period. This total included switches from his existing Financial Opportunities fund, which also made Vantage’s top 10, but the overwhelming majority of inflows were new investments.

The rise in popularity of the Absolute Return sector was one of the stories of 2009 with another new launch, Cazenove Absolute UK Dynamic attracting investors.

Ben Lundie, head of Vantage Development, says: “The Absolute Return sector is newish in the retail space and some investors may not have had exposure and were interested in going into this area.

“As this is a newish sector, investors backed launches from Artemis, Cazenove and Jupiter which all came from top-notch managers from strong fund groups.”

Other performers included Neil Woodford’s Invesco Perpetual Income and Higher Income portfolios and the Henley-based group’s Corporate Bond fund run by Paul Causer and Paul Read. Vantage highlighted the support for income-generating investments in 2009, as record lows for interest rates made cash increasingly unattractive.

Meanwhile, the Aberdeen Emerging Markets fund topped the bestseller table during December and for the whole of 2009, reflecting the lure of the emerging markets sector for less risk-averse investors.