Royal London Corporate Bond remains on the Chelsea Selection, despite manager move to Fidelity

11 June 2015 - At the end of April 2015, Sajiv Vaid, lead manager of the Elite Rated Royal London Corporate Bond fund, announced that he would be leaving the company to join Fidelity Worldwide Investments.

Once there, he will become co-manager of the MoneyBuilder Income and Extra Income funds, working alongside the highly respected Ian Spreadbury.

A manager move of this kind can sometimes result in the fund being taken off the Chelsea Selection. However, due to a number of reasons, outlined below, we have decided the fund should remain there.

Jonathan Platt, Sajiv’s co-manager and head of Royal London’s fixed income team, will take on full responsibility for the Royal London Corporate Bond fund. He was a very active co-manager, taking the lead on sector choices and duration decisions.

Jonathan is well-known and respected by the Chelsea research team. He was also sole manager for this fund from 1999 to 2002, before Sajiv took the lead role. Consequently, a portion of the fund's long-term performance can be attributed to him. In addition, Royal London has very much a team-based process.

Following a meeting with Jonathan last week to discuss future plans for the fund, we are satisfied that the investment process will remain unchanged and that the fund has been left in good hands.

Commenting on the move, Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea said: “Fidelity has made a good hire, in what looks like good succession planning for when Ian Spreadbury decides to retire.

“However, Jonathan has been co-manager on the fund for many years and had sole responsibility for the fund in the early days. Much of the long-term manager skill has come from Jonathan. Couple this with the process-driven support of the rest of the fixed income team, and we are happy to keep the fund on the Chelsea Selection.”