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Insurance and media holdings boost Kames Capital's Ryan
Holdings in life insurance businesses have lifted Ryan's performance, while her lack of oil exposure has acted as a drag.
Markets
Kames Ethical Equity fund manager Audrey Ryan has been taking profits in some of her growth stocks after strong runs. The fund features in Citywire Selection, our guide to the best investment ideas.
Top-10 positions in Rightmove (RMV.L), data storage specialist Telecity (TCY.L) and temporary power group Aggreko (AGGK.L) have all been top sliced, with the proceeds recycled into retail and house builders, as Ryan believes the worst is probably over for the UK consumer.
Missing out on beverage makers and oil majors
Overweight positions in media, support services and insurers as well as underweights to banks and pharmaceuticals have all helped performance in 2012. Conversely Ryan said that not owning beverage groups or the oil majors had weakened performance this year.
Support services and testing group Intertek (ITRK.L) has also been trimmed in the past few weeks after a strong run, and Ryan has continued to add to her stake in soft furnishings group Dunelm (DNLM.L).
'[Dunelm] is continuing to gain market share. It is quite an immature model in the UK, and the big story is its continuing store roll out,' she said.
Positive on housebuilders
Elsewhere, Ryan has continued to add to her housebuilders through increased stakes in Taylor Wimpey (TW.L) and Bellway (BWY.L), taking the fund to 1.1% over the benchmark weighting.
'We are reassured by the government's moves on the housing market. This is not a fantastic demand story, but these companies are working their land bank assets much harder than before and we think the worst is probably over for UK consumers,' she said.
Owing to the strict ethical remit, Ryan can hold no tobacco, food retailers, pharmaceutical, gambling, banking or mining stocks.
The ethical screening means Ryan is excluded from owning more than half of the FTSE 100, giving the fund a mid-cap bias. At the end of August 43.6% was invested in large caps, with just over 50% in mid caps. At the same time the £250 million fund's largest overweight sector was support services, followed by financial services and media respectively.
Overweight to life insurers remains
Ryan completely sold out of support service group Aegis (AEGS.L) recently, taking profits ahead of its sale to Japanese rival Dentsu in July, and recycled the proceeds into Taylor Wimpey and Dunelm.
At the end of August Prudential (PRU.L) was the fund's third biggest position, at 3.4% of the portfolio. L&G (LGEN.L) is also a key position, while financial services group Hargreaves Lansdown (HRGV.L) and insurer Amlin (AML.L) have also been strong performers this year.
‘Being restricted to certain sectors does present some challenges. For example 2009 and the second half of 2010 were very tough as we were underweight miners and banks and had to think more laterally about how to access growth,' she said.
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- Rightmove PLC (RMV.L)
- Telecity Group PLC (TCY.L)
- Aggreko PLC (AGGK.L)
- Intertek Group PLC (ITRK.L)
- Dunelm Group PLC (DNLM.L)
- Taylor Wimpey PLC (TW.L)
- Bellway PLC (BWY.L)
- Aegis Group PLC (AEGS.L)
- Prudential PLC (PRU.L)
- Legal & General Group PLC (LGEN.L)
- Hargreaves Lansdown PLC (HRGV.L)
- Amlin PLC (AML.L)
- Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.L)
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