Tellworth Investments founder Paul Marriage says the firm can overlook new hire Mark Barnett’s poor run of form during his previous tenure as the former Invesco man prepares to launch a UK mid and large cap income fund in the coming months.
In the latest Portfolio Adviser video interview, Marriage describes the addition of Barnett as “great news for Tellworth”, adding he is a “great income manager” with a “fantastic long-term record”.
He says “bouncebackability” is something all fund managers must possess because periods of underperformance are inevitable.
“I’ve been running money for 25 years and you get periods which are horrible, and you underperform, but you generally bounce back really strongly and for Mark to come to Tellworth now could be that moment; it is a great time to invest in UK equities.”
Speaking about Barnett’s form at the end of his time with Invesco, Marriage says he was “handed a tricky situation and it was a tough period for him”.
He adds Barnett’s strength lies in UK mid- and large-cap income but the challenges he faced were due to the illiquid holdings the fund he inherited from Neil Woodford were invested in.
“You look at the whole suite Mark brings and you think, ‘That’s a great addition to Tellworth’, so we’re prepared to look through that period of underperformance,” he adds.
Marriage also says the fund Barnett is to run at Tellworth should be launched within the next two to three months.
Elsewhere, he reflects on why the IPO of Tellworth British Recovery & Growth trust in October last year was unsuccessful.
“There weren’t enough people who wanted to buy it, it’s that simple,” he says. But he thinks people would look back now and say it was actually “brilliant timing”.
“We still think it is a good idea,” he adds. “Will there be an opportunity to take that strategy off the shelf again and do another investment trust IPO? I don’t know, I’m not sure about that.
“Will there be the opportunity to offer that trust management strategy to an existing investment trust? Yeah, I think in the future if someone wants a really balanced way of looking at the UK with that combination of world leader winners, some recovery and some tech.
“We’d love to be able to run some money for somebody on that basis one day.”
Watch the video above for more and find more PA videos here.
