Fidelity to merge Ayesha Akbars funds
By International Adviser, 22 Aug 14
The company said it is planning to merge its £209m International Fund into its smaller £9m Open World Fund.
If approved, the merger and transfer of existing assets to the new fund will take place in November.
Ayesha Akbar will be the lead manager of the new merged fund. She will work alongside James Bateman, who will co-manage the fund. Nick Peters, currently the co-manager of the International Fund, will not be involved in the new fund and instead will focus on the other multi-asset funds he manages.
The firm said that the investment process and philosophy will remain unchanged.
“As a fund investing in other funds, the Fidelity Open World Fund provides a structure that we believe offers greater investment opportunities and prospects for positive investment outcomes, along with the additional benefit of input from third party investment managers,” a Fidelity spokesperson said.
While the International Fund is biased towards European and UK markets in terms of the companies it invests in, the Open World Fund adopts a more global investing approach. Hence the larger International Fund will merged into the Open World Fund.
“The risk profile is not expected to change as a result of this merger,” the spokesperson added.