Artemis announces launch of the Artemis Funds (Lux) – UK Select Fund

Artemis has launched a Sicav-version of its award-winning UK Select Fund, which is jointly managed by Ed Legget and Ambrose Faulks, April 29th. 

Co-managers Legget and Faulks, have managed the UK unit trust version of UK Select, together since December 2015. The fund had assets of £2.163 billion as of 3rd May 2024. 

The managers commented: "The UK stock market has been out of favour for the last decade. The headwinds have been many.

"At a sector level the UK markets’ bias towards more capital and balance sheet intensive businesses has been a headwind for both earnings and valuations in a world of low interest rates and quantitative easing. Both are now changing. 

"On the macro-economic front, the latest forecasts from the OBR as well as the further modest tax cuts from the recent Budget would suggest that the risk to consensus expectations for the UK economy remains on the upside. This should support the earnings of our domestic focused holdings. 

"Today many companies are valued at a significant discount to an already cheap market as well as their own long-term history. Many of these stocks currently offer distribution yields - buyback and dividends combined - in the teens. Already private equity and other companies are using M&A to capitalise on the low valuations available. As confidence improves this is a trend we would expect to accelerate.

"For the UK Select strategy our focus on free cash flow combined with a high active share leaves us well placed to capitalise on the exceptional absolute and relative return opportunity on offer."

Adam Gent, head of intermediated sales at Artemis, commented: "We are very pleased to announce the launch of Artemis UK Select into our SICAV fund umbrella, this launch is in response to an increasing number of our international clients wanting the ability to access our highly regarded UK equity capabilities.

"Ed Legget and Ambrose Faulks have an outstanding long term track record* and shown their ability to deliver high levels of alpha for clients over time. We’re delighted that we have been able to provide our clients with the ability to access UK Select following its launch into our Luxembourg fund umbrella. 

"The managers have consistently been more positive for the outlook for the UK economy than many of the last couple of years. Their patience in terms of buying into stocks at what they feel is the right price and then holding on until the value is recognised by the market has proved invaluable."

The proposed Sicav fund will be identical to the Artemis UK Select Fund, a unit trust, which seeks long-term capital growth by investing in a focused portfolio of 40 to 60 stocks without any regard to the benchmark’s composition, which is in the IA UK All Companies sector and has a benchmark of the FTSE All Share.