Manager resignation forces Cautious Growth EasyISA change

17 June 2014 - Martin Gray, manager of the Miton Special Situations Portfolio, has resigned from the company after 20 years. As a result, the fund has been taken off the Chelsea Core Selection and has been replaced in the Cautious Growth EasyISA Portfolio by Henderson UK Property.

In a statement released on Monday 10th June 2014, Miton Group announced that Martin Gray would be leaving the company and that David Jane, whose business, Darwin Investment Managers Limited, will be acquired by Miton, will take on the management of Special Situations Portfolio with immediate effect. Jane will also manage Miton Strategic Portfolio, Total Return and Global Diversified Income funds.

Gray joined Miton in 1994 and ran the Special Situations Portfolio since 1997. In the statement, Miton said that it had become clear in recent months that the group's plans for the future differed from those of Gray and he had decided to leave.

The acquisition of Darwin Investment Managers Limited is scheduled to complete on 30th September this year. David Jane, who has 25 years' experience managing multi-asset funds, has said that he will apply his macro and thematic approach to the management of the Miton funds and focus on capital preservation.

Chelsea has downgraded the Miton Special Situations fund to a 'hold' and removed it from the Core Selection.

Henderson UK Property, which has replaced the Miton fund in the Chelsea Cautious Growth EasyISA, was added to the Core Selection earlier this year. It has a Chelsea Risk Rating of 5. The managers' primary concern of maintaining an attractive yield sets this fund apart from many of its peers. To sustain the yield, the managers focus on tenant strength and lease length. Strong tenants are those where their long-term prospects are good and are likely to be resilient during all stages of the business cycle. The average lease length is over ten years, with 25% of the leases currently linked to inflation, and the managers have indicated they would like to increase their exposure to inflation-linked leases over time.