Mark Dampier, head of fund research at Hargreaves Lansdown, while acknowledging Legget’s ability, highlighted the differences in company culture as a reason for the period of transition.
“Artemis have got a good fund manager coming in,” he expanded. “The question is whether Legget will prosper under a slightly different regime.
“Steer will want to be talking to Legget for a while, so it will take a bit of time to bed in. Legget is joining a good bunch of guys at Artemis, but how he adapts to the change of culture is to be seen.”
Legget will take over a fund which, as of 23 June, had returned 144.61% since Steer began managing it in July 2009, against a peer average of 116.51%.
While there have been various theories put forward as to why Legget has chosen to swap Standard Life for Artemis, Burdett sees a desire for a change of scenery as the most likely explanation, rather than an issue over fund size.
“The fund he is taking over is £737m already, so if investors follow Legget then it will quickly get back up to the level of the Standard Life fund,” he said.
“Also, these days a fund that size is manageable for most people, so I do not think that is the reason. I think it is probably down to wanting a change. It is a change of culture, but he is going in as a partner to a very respectable business.”
Leaving it all behind
But what of the SLI UK Equity Unconstrained Fund that Legget leaves behind, the running of which will be assumed by Standard Life’s investment director and former manager of the fund, Wesley McCoy?
“The most important issue for us is that the fund will not be moving from its ‘Focus on Change’ philosophy and will continue to draw from Standard Life’s ‘winners list’,” said Caspar Rock, Architas CIO.
“We believe that this fund is the purest expression of the Standard Life investment approach, which draws from a matrix of analyst stock picks. It is a high conviction, high octane strategy, which has performed very well over the long term.”
Dampier is equally sanguine about the upheaval, adding that he will be keeping the fund on his ‘Wealth 150’ list of top fund picks.
“I do not think that there will any implications,” he said. “McCoy used to run the fund and did really well, and it has now gone around full circle. He has been working with Legget for a while anyway, and I do not see why the change should matter. I expect McCoy to continue the good work.”
