FTAdviser.com

Advertising

Keith Ounsworth, sales and marketing director, said the asset manager wanted to hire two to three members per team. The investment strategy would depend on the appointments, he said, but Marlborough would aim to launch the offering before venturing into Japan.

"We want a fund manager with a track record and ability," he said. "In the short term, we would expect a European manager to be defensive – in other words, a multi-cap fund with a short-term, large-cap bias."

He expressed particular admiration for the £318m CF Odey Continental European, £482.5m Neptune European Opportunities and £379.2m Resolution Argonaut European Alpha funds.

Over 12 months to the end of June, the Continental European was first out of 97 funds in Europe ex UK, with returns of 8.3 per cent. The European Opportunities was fifth with losses of 0.2 per cent, while the European Alpha was sixth, with losses of 0.3 per cent. The sector average fall was 9.7 per cent.

Marlborough would seed the fund with £20m of its own money, as well as market it to external investors.

Mr Ounsworth said he could give few details on the Japan product at this stage, but confirmed it would also be multi-cap, with a short-term, large-cap bias due to recent market conditions.

Both funds would be single-priced Oeics with two share classes, he added, one for retail and one for institutional. The minimum investment on the institutional share class would be £50,000 or slightly higher, while the minimum for retail would be £1000.

The AMC would be 1.5 per cent for retail and 1 per cent for institutional clients to take into account 0.5 per cent trail commission on the retail share class. There will be a 5 per cent initial charge on the retail share class and little or none on institutional. The anticipated TER will be competitive with the market, Mr Ounsworth said.

Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, said: "The way to differentiate yourself is performance. You need managers who can give you good numbers.

"Marlborough has a good history with outsourcing deals. They have been very successful in finding managers who don't have the power to distribute. Those could be managers without a presence in the UK."

He said it could take Marlborough as much as 12 months to hire a new team from scratch. He estimated gardening leave for managers is currently between three and 12 months, six months being average.