MAB-Quarterly-Review-Q2-2025-Cautious - Flipbook - Page 5
New buys
Evenlode UK Select Fund:
Evenlode is an employee-owned fund manager
founded in Oxford in 2009. The 昀椀rm has grown to over
30 people, 18 of whom are on the investment teams
managing UK equity and global equity funds. The UK
equity strategy has a sole focus on ‘quality’ companies,
de昀椀ned as those able to generate sustainable growth
in typically market-leading businesses, with high
barriers to entry and high 昀椀nancial strength. Since
2009, the team have delivered an exceptional track
record that has signi昀椀cantly outperformed the
UK equity market with lower volatility and lower
drawdowns in weaker equity markets. Although
their more recent performance had lagged the UK
market, their long-term return pro昀椀le provides a very
attractive complement to the pro昀椀les of the Fund’s
other incumbent UK equity managers that invest with
a very different style.
ARGA European Fund:
The fund aims to generate long-term returns by
investing primarily in European equities that are
priced at a material discount to their perceived
intrinsic value, typically selecting good businesses
going through a temporary issue or a restructuring
phase, which has led them to trade on an unusually
depressed valuation. The manager’s investment
style and underlying portfolio are very different
to the two incumbent active managers, adding a
welcome additional layer of style diversi昀椀cation to
our European exposure.
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Man Alternative Credit
Opportunities Fund:
The Man Alternative Credit Opportunities Fund was
added as a fourth manager in our Absolute Return
blend. This fund is managed by Mike Scott, who already
manages the Man High Yield Opportunities Fund
within the Fund’s Fixed Income allocation. The fund
seeks credit opportunities globally, using both long
and short positions. This gives the strategy a “market
neutral” return pro昀椀le, which we expect will deliver
good returns in a variety of market environments and
independent of the direction of credit markets, in
contrast to the High Yield Opportunities Fund which
is “long biased” and expected to move broadly in line
with the wider market. Since we began investing in
the High Yield Opportunities Fund in April 2020, the
strategy has delivered excellent results thanks to the
manager and his team’s expertise, and we believe
this absolute return strategy is well placed to build
on that success.
Ellington Structured Credit Fund:
The fund was added to the Fixed Income manager
blend and operates in arguably the more niche
segments of the public credit markets. However, we
believe that Ellington is exceptionally well-situated
to generate consistently differentiated excess returns
from these markets, given their long-established
institutional, trading and technological capabilities.
Additionally, we think the underlying assets within
the fund provide a diversi昀椀ed source of return at
attractive valuations. The introduction of Ellington
reduces the sensitivity to interest rates in our Fixed
Income manager blend and will complement our
existing high-quality treasury bond exposure.
Manager Meetings
We attended 52 meetings during the quarter to review
existing and prospective managers.
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