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Under the terms of the agreement, Barclays will gain a large capital injection, but will have less room to reinvest its profits in the business or redistribute them to ordinary income investors.

"We will not know for some time whether the right course of action on Lloyds and Barclays was to take the government money or to source recapitalisation outside the government. The economy in the UK is frozen and needs defrosting, and the government seems to be the only agency able to do that," Mr Nutt said.

"It's a buyers' market, not a sellers' market. The recapitalisation needed to be successful. If the money was better serving the company coming in from the Middle East than the Far East, then so be it."

Mr Nutt has maintained a weighting of more than 20 per cent in financials and a small position in banks. The bank holding comprises Barclays and Lloyds TSB, which have needed the least government assistance of the major UK-focused players. Lloyds TSB has been seen as the stronger partner in the merger with HBoS, which shareholders approved last week.

Mr Nutt has also retained a UK-listed housebuilder in the fund, despite the problems afflicting the sector.

"We had three housebuilders. We sold one of them at the top and one of them on the way down, and we still have one of them, which has the strongest balance sheet in the sector," he said.

"If you are going to invest for four months, the chances are you are going to lose money. If you are looking to invest for four years, you are going to make a lot of money."