The Luxembourg-domiciled fund, which was seeded with £60m of client money, invests on a pan-European basis and currently holds investments in 13 countries with approximately 22% in the UK, 20% in the Netherlands, 14% in Germany and 11% in both France and Switzerland.
Anand, who is also head of European equities at the firm, will look to blend a focused portfolio of blue-chip long-term investments where he believes the market is materially mis-pricing a company’s prospects. It will invest across sectors but is currently overweight financials.
F&C said the yield on the current portfolio is estimated to be approximately 3.7% compared with a benchmark yield of 3.2%. Dividends will be paid on a quarterly basis.
According to its factsheet, the £184m Oeic, which was launched in 1998 and has been managed by Anand since he joined the firm in 2007, has provided an average annual return of 4.03%. It has the highest investment in the Netherlands, followed by Germany, Switzerland and France respectively.
Performance over the past few years has been disappointing with investors only making a return if they had invested five years ago. According to its factsheet, the fund is down 13.28%, 0.66% and 9.11% over three years, one year and year to date respectively. Over five years the fund has returned 21.86%. Historic yield indicates the income share class delivered a yield of 1.56% at the last payment date.
The Sicav has initially been registered for sale in the UK, Austria, Ireland, Germany, Finland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
