Fitch Ratings has placed the Henderson European Growth fund’s quality rating under review after the departure of manager Richard Pease who is moving to a start-up business.
The rating agency had ranked the £916m European Growth fund as “strong”. However, the lead fund manager Mr Pease and supporting analyst James Milne are to leave Henderson to join a new fund management company, Crux Asset Management. This leaves Simon Rowe as the fund’s only fund manager.
Fitch expects to resolve the status in the next six months and in the mean time it will monitor the fund.
In a statement released today the agency said: “The agency will closely monitor the fund during this period to determine if its capacity to achieve its objectives and outperform peers has been affected by the departures.”
The Henderson European Growth fund has returned 55.7 per cent since September 2009, compared to the IMA Europe ex UK sector average of 36.3 per cent, according to the group’s factsheet.
Crux Asset Management was incorporated last year but was not authorised by the FCA until last week.
The new firm will be led by by former Thornhill chief operating officer Alistair Reid as chief executive. Mark Little, also formerly at Henderson, will be in charge of distribution and Giles Kidd-May, previously of Jupiter, will be in charge of marketing.
