John Bennett, formally at GAM, will take over management of the Gartmore European Selected Opportunities Fund from 1st February. He replaces Roger Guy and Guillaume Rambourg who are to concentrate on running other Gartmore funds including the European Absolute Return Fund.
Having recently met with John Bennett we feel he is a good replacement for Guy and Rambourg and will serve investors in the fund well. He has built an impressive track record running European funds for GAM where he spent 16 years. A further positive is that he shares a similar management style to the outgoing managers and a preference for larger companies. This is likely to make for a smooth transition and mean few immediate changes to the portfolio are necessary when he takes over.
Bennett believes Europe remains an excellent hunting ground for undervalued companies and is particularly keen on software companies where he sees increasing consolidation through merger and acquisition activity. We believe he will do a good job and that existing investors in the fund should continue to hold. At this stage we will not be reinstating the fund back to the Wealth 150 as we first want to see how he fares in the new role.
Having recently met with John Bennett we feel he is a good replacement for Guy and Rambourg and will serve investors in the fund well. He has built an impressive track record running European funds for GAM where he spent 16 years. A further positive is that he shares a similar management style to the outgoing managers and a preference for larger companies. This is likely to make for a smooth transition and mean few immediate changes to the portfolio are necessary when he takes over.
Bennett believes Europe remains an excellent hunting ground for undervalued companies and is particularly keen on software companies where he sees increasing consolidation through merger and acquisition activity. We believe he will do a good job and that existing investors in the fund should continue to hold. At this stage we will not be reinstating the fund back to the Wealth 150 as we first want to see how he fares in the new role.
