Fidelity Special Situations Fund Changes
June 27th, 2006
If you are a Fidelity Special Situations fund investor, you should by now have received a voting and information pack direct from Fidelity. Whilst I can’t advise you on how you should vote, I wanted to share my thoughts about the proposed changes with you following a meeting I attended with Anthony Bolton and the new manager on 19th June.
If the vote is successful the fund will be split 50/50, Anthony Bolton will continue to run 50% in the usual way and a replacement manager will be announced in the summer of next year for that part. The remaining 50% will be used to form a new fund, from September this year, which will be a GLOBAL SPECIAL SITUATIONS FUND. It will be managed by Jorma Korhonen, who has been with Fidelity for ten years, worked closely with Anthony and has been running two small funds for some time.
Although I have some issues with Fidelity’s communication of the fund change to its investors, I am generally positive about the change itself for the following reasons:
- The introduction of a global basis for 50% of the fund is entirely sustainable, given the level of money involved
- We now operate in a more global investment environment than that which existed when the Special Situations Fund was launched
- Fidelity have the strength to resource that global mandate
- Fidelity have managed positive handovers of other funds and it is in their interests to ensure the success of this one
The essential point is that the new fund will be run by Anthony from September until the hand over in January and therefore if you want a last attempt to benefit from the Bolton touch, this is it.
As with all changes of this nature, making rash changes to your portfolio as a ‘knee jerk’ reaction may not be wise. We will monitor the fund in great detail next year to ensure the handover is successful and continue to communicate our thoughts to you through our regular bulletins and via our website.
UPDATE 20th September 2006: Following a succesful vote by shareholders, Fidelity’s Special Situations Fund underwent a fund split. Read more here.
Author: Philippa Gee
June 27th, 2006
Category: Fund News, Investments.
