Investors withdrew just shy of £200mn in the 22 days following the announcement Alex Savvides, manager of the JO Hambro UK Dynamic equity fund, was departing the firm to join Jupiter, data from Morningstar has shown
Savvides is to succeed Ben Whitmore in running the equity mandates at Jupiter, having run the JO Hambro UK Dynamic fund since he launched it in 2009.
Prior to this he worked on JO Hambro’s UK Growth fund.
According to data from Morningstar, in performance terms, the JO Hambro UK Dynamic fund has returned 28 per cent over the past three years, compared with 8 per cent for the average fund in the IA UK All Companies sector in the same time period,
This means it ranked 7th out of 225 funds in the sector over the past three years.
JO Hambro announced that Mark Costar, who runs the aforementioned UK Growth fund is among the trio replacing Savvides.
His growth fund has struggled of late, underperforming the peer group in each of the past three calendar years.
Darius McDermott, investment adviser to the VT Chelsea range of multi-manager funds, sold his holding in the JO Hambro UK Dynamic fund “within 48 hours” of the announcement of Savvides departure.
He said: “That fund was launched for Alex, he came to see us just before he launched it, it is a fund which is very much about that manager,. When that happens you can take the approach of waiting to meet the new manager, and see what they have to say, or sell straight away, and in this instance, we decided to sell immediately.”
Richard Philbin, who runs the model portfolio service is somewhat more positive on the outlook for the strategy.
He told FT Adviser: “Alex hasn’t yet 'left the building' so that gives us some comfort that the process is still being followed.
"I have known Mark Costar and other members of the UK Team for a very long time and although the two styles are slightly different, the odds are the fund now has more than Alex’s eyes watching over it.
"The Hawksmoor MPS can only invest in funds that have been approved and on the buy list – they are undertaking some due diligence as well. We expect to come to a conclusion in the very near future.”
Ben Yearsley, investment consultant at Fairview Investments said a portfolio of new money he advised on, which would otherwise have gone to JO Hambro UK Dynamic, will instead go to Alex Wright’s Fidelity UK Special Values investment trust as he feels the track records are "quite similar".
Meanwhile he expected that money his clients currently have deployed in the JO Hambro fundwill move to Jupiter when Savvides formally joins that company later this year.
At present Savvides is on gardening leave.
The UK Dynamic fund has just over £1bn of assets, but at the time of the announcement of Savvides departure, he managed another £1bn in segregated mandates.
FT Adviser has previously reported that institutional investor WTW, which allocated some of that £1bn to Savvides, is reviewing it’s options following his departure.
David.Thorpe@ft.com
