River & Mercantile has landed Schroders manager James Sym to help launch a suite of European-focused equity funds this summer.
Sym (pictured) managed over £1.5bn of assets at Schroders as lead manager on the European Alpha Income and European Alpha Plus funds and co-managing the European Alpha Focus and European Opportunities funds.
Joining R&M in June, Sym will assist with the group’s first foray into European funds by creating a dedicated range, with the first fund due to be launched this summer. At the firm he will work closely with UK equities head Hugh Sergeant and the broader equities team which also covers global and emerging market strategies.
R&M group chief executive James Barham pointed to Sym’s “wealth of experience” in European markets and said his “pragmatic investment approach” broadly mirrors the potential, valuation, timing (PVT) approach set up by Sergeant and Dan Hanbury in 2006.
“James has achieved some fantastic results for his funds’ investors over the past decade or so,” said Barham.
“He is one of the strongest valuation conscious managers in European Equity and we believe the coming period will be very exciting for investors in our funds.”
Sym’s funds have slumped relative to peers in the IA Europe ex UK sector due to his preferred value style being out of favour. Over one and three years his £387.5m European Alpha Income fund is down 28% and 30% versus peers’ 9% and 6% losses over the same period. On a five year view his fund is down 10% compared with the sector average which is up 15%
