Liontrust to tackle European fund overlap

5 August 2011 8:00 am | By Joanne Ellul

Liontrust Asset Management says it has no plans to merge any funds following its acquisition of Occam Asset Management but will look to address an overlap in European assets.

This week, Liontrust said it will acquire emerging market specialist Occam for around £3.9m. As part of the deal, Liontrust will take on the management contracts of four Dub-lin-domiciled funds, including the Occam emerging markets opportunities, Occam Asia focus, Occam Asia absolute return and Occam Europe focus funds.

It will also take over two Cayman Island-domiciled hedge funds, the Occam diversity fund and Occam sorbus, which is a long/short European equity fund. Liontrust’s James Inglis-Jones and Gary West will take control of the Occam sorbus and Occam Europe focus funds.

The Occam funds will be rebranded as Liontrust funds.

Liontrust chief executive Jon Ions rules out fund mergers but says: “There is overlap with Occam in the European assets side and we are going to be looking at the best way forward to deal with that. There is very little overlap elsewhere.”

Hargreaves Lansdown senior analyst Meera Patel says: “I think there will be some kind of fund mergers. Europe is not a favourite market among retail investors.”

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