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The fund, run off the group’s global equities desk, will have a starting portfolio of 50 global stocks with typical weightings of 1.5-3 per cent.

Managed on a bottom-up basis, the fund will use the FTSE World index as a rough guideline to determine geographical split.

At launch, Global Dividend will feature a 48.9 per cent weighting for North America, 31.5 per cent for Europe, 8.7 per cent for Asia ex Japan, 5.1 per cent for the UK and 1.6 per cent for Japan.

Mr Rhodes, who has managed a model of the fund for the past year, uses the global team’s stock-selection strategies to build the portfolio, which aims to be sector neutral.

There are three main categories of stocks he selects, he said, those believed to be undervalued, those undergoing internal change and those facing external changes.

Johnson & Johnson is an example of an undervalued holding, which Rhodes noted has raised its dividend every year for more than 40 years.

Turnover is expected to be quite low, around a third each year, with an average holding time on a stock of three to four years.

Due to the fund’s focus on growing dividends consistently, Mr Rhodes said he selected companies not on their yields, but their capital discipline. “I’m not interested in investing in growth companies that happen to have a yield,” he said.

Despite the UK’s reputation as being a leader in paying dividends, the fund has only three UK stocks, as Mr Rhodes sees greater opportunities in the US, which has a long history of shareholder value.

He noted there are more than 100 companies in that market that have increased their dividends consecutively for the past 30 years.

The fund features an upfront charge of 4 per cent and an annual fee of 1.5 per cent and offers initial commission of 3 per cent plus 0.5 per cent trail.