Neptune European Opportunities downgraded

10 July 2012 | By Rob Langston

The £812.8m Neptune European Opportunities fund managed by Rob Burnett has been downgraded from its “exceptional” five star rating to a three star “high quality” rating.

Bestinvest research analyst Mark Lane, says: “Since taking over the fund in 2005 Rob Burnett has built a good track record. However, recently Burnett has struggled to identify the right strategy for the current market environment, which has resulted in a particularly high fund turnover.”

According to FE Analytics, the fund made a 5.5 per cent loss during the six months to the end of June, compared with a 1.5 per cent average return from the IMA Europe ex-UK sector and a 0.9 per cent return by from the fund’s benchmark, MSCI Europe ex-UK.

In the fund’s most recent factsheet for the first quarter of the year, underperformance was blamed on the portfolio’s underweight position in banks and weak performance from materials stocks. The manager also claimed the high cash weighting at the end of January had been detrimental to performance early on in the quarter when markets had performed well.

Neptune head of European equities Burnett joined Neptune in 2002, becoming a fund manager in 2005.

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