The move, which sees Lee Freeman-Shor’s fund adopt a GDP-weighted approach to its strategic asset allocation, also resulted in another manager being added to the portfolio’s US mandate.
After adopting the new strategy, the weighting to Europe including the UK was cut from 61.89% to 26.66% and exposure to the US lifted from 13.66% to 26.29%.
In order to reduce weightings to the UK, the mandates held by Buxton and Steer were removed. Skandia stressed that the change owed entirely to the new asset allocation strategy and not the managers’ performance on the fund.
BlackRock’s Richard Plackett and Old Mutual’s Daniel Nickols are the managers looking after the fund’s UK mandate, while Odey Asset Management founding partner Crispin Odey oversees Europe excluding the UK.
Tony Rosenthal of TimesSquare Capital Management has been awarded a £44m mandate in the fund to increase its exposure to US equities. Rosenthal will focus on small and mid cap stocks and complements Tom Marsico, who runs another US mandate on the portfolio and concentrates on large caps.
Previously, Skandia Global Best Ideas Fund used a custom benchmark approach to asset allocation, compromising a 50% market cap exposure to UK equities and 50% GDP-weighted exposure to global equities. The new approach allows it to benefit from greater country and currency diversification.
Freeman-Shor said: “A GDP-weighted approach leads to greater regional, country and currency diversification and ensures the fate of the fund is not tied to the fate of any single exposure.
“In the context of the big three risks – the European crisis, US fiscal cliff and global growth – a more diversified approach is seen as very attractive.”
The manager added: “The introduction of Tony Rosenthal to the US line-up is a welcome addition to the fund. He brings with him a wealth of experience in US equities and has a phenomenal track record in managing very focused portfolios.”
