Richard Buxton is set to take over the floundering Jupiter UK Growth trust, the asset manager has announced.
Buxton (pictured) will replace current manager Steve Davies by the end of April. He will be supported by Errol Francis and Ed Meier who have worked with him for many years, first at Schroders and more recently at Merian Global Investors.
The board had signalled last October that it was reviewing the company’s investment strategy following a period of poor performance.
The Jupiter UK Growth trust has severely lagged peers in the IT UK All Companies sector and is third quartile over one year and fourth quartile over three and five years.
Since Davies was handed the mandate at the end of June 2016 the trust has returned 26.1%, half as much as the sector average of 58.2%.
The decision to appoint Merian UK equities head Buxton comes a day after Jupiter confirmed it was buying Merian for £370m.
The board had been considering various alternatives, including wrangling another manager from within Jupiter to take the reins, appointing another fund management company or liquidating the trust altogether.
Formica says Buxton will help trust attract more assets
Jupiter CEO Andrew Formica praised the board’s choice of Buxton which he said would significantly help the trust attract more assets. It is currently £48m in size, according to Trustnet, paling in comparison to Davies’ Jupiter UK Growth Oeic which stands at £981m.
“My team and I are delighted to be appointed to manage Jupiter UK Growth Investment Trust,” Buxton said commenting on his appointment. “We look forward to working with the board and to using our proven long-term approach to improving the returns to shareholders and growing the Company over time.”
The board said it would not charge a base management fee for the entirety of 2020 which it said would result in savings of circa £240,000 over the period.
Following that the base management fee charged to the company will continue to be 0.50% of adjusted net assets, reducing to 0.45% for adjusted net assets over £150m and up to £250m and reducing further to 0.40% for adjusted net assets over £250m.
