After eight years of being soft closed to new investors, the £1.9bn IFSL Evenlode Income fund, managed by Hugh Yarrow and Ben Peters, will finally open its doors to new investors without a fee, Portfolio Adviser can reveal.
In 2018, to protect existing investors, an initial charge of 5% was introduced for new investors on the fund, which will be removed effective today (14 September).
Commenting on the decision, lead manager Hugh Yarrow (picture) told Portfolio Adviser: “The significant de-rating of UK quality shares over the last three years has created a very attractive opportunity within our investable universe.
“The portfolio’s free cashflow valuation is as good as it was both at the launch of the fund in autumn 2009 and in the depths of the Covid sell-off in 2020.
“We see a very broad range of opportunities across our universe of competitively advantaged, high ROIC, UK-listed companies – from UK-based global market leaders to domestic market leaders, from consumer-facing to business-to-business franchises, and across the market capitalisation spectrum.”
The team’s flagship strategy has been in operation since 2009 when the business was first launched, and aims to deliver a combination of healthy, growing dividend streams and attractive annualised capital returns.
It aims to achieve this by investing in the shares of high-quality UK-based companies, with market-leading positions, good cash generation and long-term growth potential.
Since inception, the fund has returned 354.6% to its investors, according to data from Financial Express. This represents more than 30 percentage points of outperformance compared to the FTSE All Share and nearly 100 percentage points compared to its average peer in the IA UK All Companies sector.
