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European absolute return funds

Thierry Serero - 28 April 2010

The European market holds much potential for investors, yet concerns over currency fluctuations, countries’ national debts, and the complexity of the region can all deter UK based investors. This is where absolute return funds can help them. As these funds aim for positive returns in all market conditions, employing strategies that allow funds to benefit from share price falls as well as rises, they are not bound by market movements. This is in contrast to traditional long only equity funds which can only deliver returns relative to the market.

Moreover, these absolute return funds are generally neutral on currencies. This means that Sterling based investors don’t take any risk in the fluctuation of European currencies against the Pound. In fact, investors are only exposed to the percentage gain or loss of the underlying securities. This is a great advantage.

Traditionally, long only European funds are more or less 95% plus exposed to the fluctuation of European indices including currencies (we call this measure Beta). This means they are less than 5% exposed to the manager’s stock picking skill (we call this Alpha). However, in an absolute return European equity fund, the investor is 100% exposed to the manager’s stock picking skill (Alpha). One way to make use of this greater manager impact is to combine European absolute return funds with low cost tracker funds. This combination can often be cheaper than investing in a traditional long only European fund and also brings more capital protection on the downside.

European absolute return funds can also help to ensure diversification in a portfolio. Firstly, absolute return funds in general have their place in a diversified investment portfolio alongside investments in other assets including cash, property and equity. European absolute return funds can also be used as part of a diverse absolute return portfolio that covers the UK, Europe and other territories. The fundamental point is that absolute return funds bring a diversification benefit in the form of a unique manager stock picking skill.

More specifically, in the case of Europe, absolute return funds can seek to capitalise on the change that has taken place across the Continent over the last two years, within countries, industry sectors and individual companies. The crisis had a diverging effect on these, with ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ in each of these areas, from businesses that have battled their way through upheavals to emerge stronger, to entire countries that are mired in debt. European absolute return fund managers can apply their stock picking strategies with the aim of ensuring that investors can benefit from all of these.

The fact that the European market overall is recovering more slowly than US and Asian territories is also a positive – there is value in the market now which skilled managers can seek out for investors. This applies particularly to ‘special situations’; in the wake of the financial crisis many European companies have worked hard to cut costs and become more streamlined. As a result they’re now an attractive business as well as an investment proposition. It’s likely that we’ll see a lot more corporate activity in the European market, as companies restructure and expand. Again, skilled absolute return managers can work to harness this growth potential for investors.

All in all, European absolute return funds can be viewed as a strong addition to investment portfolios, helping investors make the most of this key world market.

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