Stewart Investors fund manager changes

A number of Stewart Investors funds (previously branded First State) had a change of lead manager announced this week.

We do not think there is a need for investors to panic and make a snap decision about their investments. We have, however, down-graded these funds from a generic 'buy' rating to a 'hold'. These funds are: Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders, Stewart Investors Global Emerging Market Leaders and Stewart Investors Latin America.

In addition, Stewart Investors Asia Pacific Leaders has been removed from both the Chelsea Core Selection and Aggressive Growth EasyISA, and replaced with Matthews Asia Pacific Tiger.

Juliet Schooling Latter, research director at Chelsea, says: “We fully appreciate that the investment style and philosophy of the funds will not be changing, and they have a team-based process, but all managers do things slightly differently.  Whilst we are more comfortable with the change in lead manager on the Asia Pacific Leaders fund than we are with the changes to the other two funds, there is a question mark as to whether the manager, David Gait, can translate his successful sustainable investment process from what is currently a small and mid-cap fund to an all-cap fund. We will request a meeting with David to talk this through further and may reinstate the fund to our Selection list at a later date. For now, however, it has been removed.”