FTAdviser.com

Advertising

Mr Harris acknowledged his fund had not been performing up to scratch over the last few months and blamed this on mistiming the market and reinvesting in certain sectors too early.

The fund has dropped in rank among its IMA Global Growth peers, from 12th out of 145 over three years to 79th out of 177 over one year and 164th out of 187 over three months, according to Morningstar.

Over one year to 16 June, it has fallen 5.8 per cent, compared with a fall of 5.7 per cent in its sector average.

Mr Harris highlighted he was personally "heavily invested" in the fund, and was striving to bring it back in line.

He also stressed the portfolio was the "most volatile" in New Star's range, but said he was confident with the current portfolio.

"We have been increasing our exposure to ETFs as there are two main benefits – liquidity and reducing our total exposure ratios from around 2.5 to 2 per cent."

Mr Harris added the team was starting to get back into gold and had taken a 0.5 per cent weighting, with a view to adding more later on.

"We are taking tentative steps but will slowly begin to build up our exposure," he said. "There could be a setback in the physical price, but overall in the long term there is profit to be made."