Announcements

Following a sale of the Crux business to facilitate the retirement of veteran fund manager Richard Pease (a European market specialist), the new owners Lansdowne Partners have decided to focus on European markets and 3 UK specialist funds, including the one run by the Richard Penney (UK Special Situations) have moved under a new roof at Oberon Investments.

I have to confess to having no prior knowledge of Oberon. An internet check tells me that they are a UK listed boutique investment house. Their shares are owned in quite large percentages by other specialist UK investment businesses and the founders. I was surprised to note that a longish photo gallery of fund managers and analysts includes not a single woman.

Interactive Investor lists no Oberon funds as far as I can see. I assume they will have to communicate with investors in the TM Crux UK funds on their platform to explain what they are going to do.

I own the former TM Crux UK Special Situations fund and am putting it on immediate close watch. Recent past performance has been very poor, but Richard Penney is a genuine deep value investor who can make money very fast on a market rotation, or at least he has done in the past. He and his team may end up subsumed into Oberon’s operation (they seem to have a special situation manager already), or sit as a side show – that cannot yet be known,

Some of my subscribers own the Axa Framlington Global Technology fund and indeed I myself have owned it in the past. Until fairly recently, it would have made most short lists for investors researching a tech specific theme. However, it was announced a little while ago that the long-standing manager, Jeremy Gleeson was leaving. His new post has since been announced – he has moved to Allianz GI to start up a new Technology fund – that will be worth putting on a watch list, I reckon.

Now we learn that the entire Axa Framlington business has been sold to BNP Paribas. That is no surprise.

After spending a fortune accumulating UK investment and insurance businesses (for example, Sun Life, Equity & Law and Framlington), AXA (a mega sized French insurance firm) did an about face (volte-face, I perhaps ought to say in this case!), and began selling off the assets, sometimes to the dismay of their clients, when the purchasers were consolidator administration firms that care more about squeezing margins than good client service.

BNP Paribas have made their own forays into the UK investment market, mainly at the fringes and without gaining traction. This transaction has the feel of an old mate helping out, rather than an enthusiastic purchase with fresh investment and ideas to come. Mr Gleeson’s departure now looks like that of someone who saw the writing on the wall.

Any investment in Axa Framlington funds ought now to be scrutinised over the coming months and some research into alternatives undertaken, in my opinion.

For your information I am away on holiday from August 7th to 14th, so this is likely my last blog post for a fortnight or so.