Following The Adviser Centre Monthly Review Meeting on 5^th March 2018, we have removed the Kames UK Equity Absolute Return fund from our Positive Watch list. 

There have been some recent changes to the fund’s management team.  As reported in our bulletin of 6^th October 2017, one of the fund’s three co-managers, David Griffiths, left the firm.  Existing co-managers, David Pringle and Malcolm McPartlin, continue to manage the fund.  At that time, we moved the fund from our Established list to our Positive Watch list, as we wished to monitor the fund following this change and to build our confidence in its ability to achieve the longer-term risk and return objectives.

Whilst acknowledging that it has been a challenging backdrop for many strategies of this type, the drawdown experience has been more extended than expected and, although the managers have reviewed their portfolio construction techniques with a view to managing downside risk more effectively, the fund’s performance has continued to struggle.  Therefore, we have decided to remove the fund from The Adviser Centre.