Alastair Mundy is taking an extended leave of absence from his portfolios at Ninety One for health reasons.
A regulatory filing from the Temple Bar Investment Trust said Alessandro Dicorrado and Steve Woolley would become co-managers of the portfolio while Mundy takes an extended leave of absence from Ninety One.
His health problems are not related to Covid-19.
Dicorrado and Woolley are co-managers on the Ninety One Global Value and Global Special Situation strategies and have worked closely with Mundy for many years, the filing said.
Ninety One confirmed the pair would also take on responsibilities for the Cautious Managed, UK Special Situations and UK Total Return funds.
Domenico (Mimi) Ferrini, co-CIO, will assume Mundy’s responsibilities as head of the value team.
Ferrini said in a statement: “Our primary concern is always to ensure continuity for our clients while safeguarding the welfare of our employees. We have robust succession plans in place to manage situations just like these and ensure each of our investment teams has the experience and depth required to provide continuity for our clients with the high standard of investment expertise and service they have come to expect from Ninety One.
“We wish Alastair well for his recovery and we look forward to his return”.
Coronavirus has given value investing a further hammering
Mundy’s value approach to equity investing had been particularly battered around by the coronavirus market sell-off, prompting him to take a £130 cash position in the Temple Bar portfolio in March to offset the investment trust’s gearing, which was adding to its volatility.
Earlier that month, he had reiterated his faith in the UK and said he was finding opportunities in cyclical stocks, namely those companies exposed to consumer spending, such as banks, retail or leisure.
Fundcalibre managing director Darius McDermott described Mundy as one of the last remaining value managers and said he is “one of the good guys”. “It cannot have been anything but pretty hard to be a value manager over the last decade. But Alastair, if nothing else, has been extremely true to his investment beliefs.”
Fundcalibre already has an “elite radar” rating on the Global Special Situations fund, run by Dicorrado and Woolley.
The “elite” ratings on Mundy’s UK Special Situations and Cautious Managed will be changed to the “elite radar” ratings, which are for fund managers with shorter track records, to reflect the change in managers. The pair have run the fund since January 2016.
Global Special Situations is the only fund from the Ninety One value team that currently sits in Chelsea Financial Services portfolios.
The Temple Bar board expressed its sympathy with Mundy, who it said had served the trust “with distinction” for many years. Mundy had been the individual manager on the trust since 2002.
It said it would monitor the arrangements and communicate with shareholders in due course.
Earlier this week, Polar Capital also announced one of its fund managers, Guy Rushton, was stepping back from portfolio management due to non-coronavirus related health issues. His Polar UK Absolute Equity fund immediately suspended and will be wound down over the next month.
> See also: Alastair Mundy: Stockpickers are just as smart as the bond team
