On 15^th December 2014, Invesco Perpetual Income was added to The Adviser Centre as a Recommended fund.

Invesco Perpetual Income is managed by Mark Barnett, Head of UK Equities.  He has had responsibility for the fund since March 2014, taking over from Neil Woodford, who left the firm.

He has been an integral part of the UK equity process for a number of years, having joined the firm in 1996, and was a natural choice to succeed Mr Woodford in the management of the income funds.  He is now responsible for a number of UK equity mandates, both open and closed ended.

We believe that Mr Barnett has handled the challenges of this transition period well.  Given his history as a key member of the team and his working relationship with the previous manager, he has an innate understanding of the expectations of the investor base and he has placed his own stamp on the fund without altering the over-arching total return approach.  We highlight that historically, Mr Barnett’s approach to portfolio construction is characterised by greater sector and stock diversification, as well as a tendency to invest more meaningfully in mid-cap stocks.

As has always been the case, little heed is paid to the structure of the UK index in the fund’s construction and therefore, its risk and return profile is expected to remain markedly different from that of the index.  Given the emphasis on delivering an attractive total return, the fund typically displays lower absolute risk features and this distinguishes it amongst its peers.

As a reminder, the fund now resides in the IMA UK All Companies sector but there is no change to the fund’s objective, which is to achieve a ‘reasonable’ level of income.