Shah's special values hit by lack of commodities
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Fidelity has downplayed the short-term underperformance of its £356.2m special values trust, stressing that it is aiming to achieve good levels of performance in the long run.
According to Trustnet, the fund has underperformed over the 12 months ending April 20. Its share price fell 1 per cent to 574p and the net value of its assets remained flat, while its UK growth peer group rose 12.4 per cent and the FTSE All-share index rose 7.4 per cent.
Special values trust chair Lynn Ruddick says the company places more emphasis on the longer-term performance of the fund. She notes that over the past five years its net assets rose 32.5 per cent compared to the index’s 25.6 per cent.
Fidelity special values trust fund manager Sanjeev Shah says he takes a contrarian approach to investing and has an interest in stocks that are “unfashionable among brokers’ analysts” and “under-owned by mainstream investment institutions”.
Shah says he has “virtually no exposure” to commodity-rel- ated sectors such as mining and recent gains in that area acted as one of the biggest detractors to the fund’s performance but he expects the sector to suffer from slowing demand in China.
The manager highlights online gaming stocks as ano- ther sector that has adversely affected the performance of the fund over the past half year.
Hargreaves Lansdown investment manager Ben Yearsley says: “Sanjeev is a good manager and has done well since taking on the special situations and special values funds from Anthony Bolton.”
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