The AXA World Funds Framlington UK fund will be Axa IM’s first UK equity fund managed by the Axa IM Framlington investment team offered as a Luxembourg-domiciled Sicav.
The fund will invest across a range of stocks from the FTSE 100, the FTSE 250, small cap and AIM markets but with a bias to mid-cap and small-cap companies, according to St John.
St John said one of the main differences between the new fund and AXA IM’s well known UK Select Opportunities Fund, where he is the support manager, is that the new offshore product will have a lower FTSE-100 weight.
“There will be a bit more technology relative to Selects Ops but otherwise it’s a difference of timing and personal preferences,” he added.
FE Trustnet, which provides independent research on fund managers, said that over a long track record, St John has outperformed the peer group more often than not. “Good stockpicking has had a material positive impact on results, which have not been particularly exposed to falling markets,” it said.
Broad spread of firms
Under a test portfolio St John has been running since last May, the bigger holdings are names such as packaging firm RPC Group, private healthcare provider Consult Medical, Betfair, Inmarsat and storage provider Safe Store.
“You should expect a pretty broad spread of companies through the market capitalisation range rather than a product that has say of 60% of its stocks in AIM and small cap and a few token mega caps,” he said.
“With a growing domestic economy and reinvigorated levels of corporate activity that look set to continue into 2016, we believe there are a plethora of fast growing UK companies that are benefitting from these positive tailwinds,” he said.
“In addition, the unconstrained approach will give us the ability to invest across the UK equity market in companies benefitting from global secular trends and those that should directly benefit should economic growth outside of the UK accelerate.”
St John, who has 16 years of investment experience, will remain the lead fund manager on the AXA Framlington UK Mid Cap fund.
March launch
The new offshore fund will be launched on 2 March and will, in addition to the UK, be registered for distribution in France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Spain in due course.
Rob Bailey, head of wholesale distribution at AXA IM said the fund was predominantly oriented around UK distributors with interest being shown elsewhere.”
“We have had a lot of clients who like the existing mid-cap fund, like the way Chris (St John) runs money and want to gain access to the UK all companies sector in a vehicle they can sell in a multi-jurisdictional fashion,” he said.
