However, he accepts it is important not to get too carried away when you think you have hit on a jackpot of value stocks, no matter how great the story.
Godber says: “Everything is a bottom up basis but with value you have to be careful that you don’t get herded into one sector.
“Any sector can look cheap so we have a 15% sector limit. There are certain times when you could own every single stock in a sector but for all the spreadsheets and all the digging what we’re trying to do is produce a fund that hopefully does better than the index but with lower risk characteristics, lower volatility and lower drawdowns and that’s all to do with diversification.”
This hunt for value, of which only 3.6% of UK funds use as a sole strategy, does lead to some interesting fund characteristics, such as an impressively high active share of more than 90% in the case of the Polar team.
Hamilton says: “In any active fund you really want stocks moving differently from each other. Our active share is a very important part of the fund. If we are going to be active you have to be genuinely active, you feel that a pound has to be working for you.”
The need to make sure money is working might stem from Hamilton’s early days in the industry, her first day working at Matterley with Godber was the first Monday following the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
“That was quite formative in how I look at fund management,” she says. “It’s obviously had a big impact. I think that’s why we are so focused on value – the crisis is such a part of the history of fund management.”
She described the launch of the new fund in January of this year as a “magic start”, taking in £110m in the first month.
