Yousefian ups Europe weighting
OPM Fund Management’s Tony Yousefian has boosted his Europe weighting to neutral after adding a 5 per cent position in an Allianz vehicle.
Mr Yousefian has taken his £10.6 Worldwide Opportunities fund to a 15.5 per cent weighting to the continent after adding a 5 per cent position in Thorsten Winkelmann’s £24.3m Allianz RCM Continental European fund.
The benchmark for Mr Yousefian’s fund is the FTSE All World index, which has a 16.3 per cent weighting to the continent.
“Thorsten has an extremely good track record and we like the process he uses,” Mr Yousefian said.
“The move is purely a valuation one as sentiment towards Europe remains negative but with the sell-off recently it has created another good buying opportunity.
“At these types of levels the potential return justifies the additional risk taken by going into the region.”
The move comes as it was confirmed last week that Spain had entered recession after two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The country’s economy shrank by 0.3 per cent from the previous quarter in the first three months of 2012.
Although the FTSEurofirst 300 reached 1,106 on March 16 from its 2012 starting point of 1,011, the index is heading back to the January 2 level at 1,048 as at April 30.