L-R: Julia Faurschou, reporter at Investment Adviser, Giles Kidd-May, marketing and communications director at Crux Asset Management, and Richard Romer-Lee, managing director at Square Mile Investment Consulting & Research
Richard Pease and James Milne took their European Special Situations fund with them when they left Henderson Global Investors and established Crux Asset Management in 2015.
The boutique has continued to build its offerings around the star managers, and this well-known portfolio, which launched in October 2009, was renamed under the Crux brand in June 2015.
A geographical breakdown shows the fund had a 17.8 per cent allocation to Sweden at the end of September 2016, with 17.7 per cent in Germany.
The managers run a relatively broad portfolio of 59 holdings with the aim of achieving long-term capital growth.
In the 12 months to October 26 the fund delivered 29.7 per cent, beating the IA Europe ex UK sector average of 18.5 per cent and the FTSE World Europe ex UK index, which lost 3.7 per cent over the period.
Mr Pease described this year as a “reasonably active” period for the fund in terms of turnover. He added IT services firm Tieto and Scandinavian outsourcer Atea to his portfolio, and disposed of two UK-listed firms – chemicals company Elementis and engineer Weir.
What the judges say
This fund was praised by the judges as having the edge over peers and maintaining its outperformance despite a change of ownership.
