Gartmore head of multi-management Tony Lanning has added the BlackRock European Dynamic fund to his portfolios, reducing his long-term underweight in the region.
Lanning has trimmed his holdings in the Cazenove European and Neptune European Opportunities funds to buy Alister Hibbert's European Dynamic strategy, adding a 4% position in the Balanced portfolio and 7% in Active.
Although Lanning remains underweight European equities, he believes Hibbert's beta-driven play on the asset class ties in with his sanguine view on the region.
"We have been underweight the region and holding some relatively defensively-positioned managers, but we are not in the double-dip camp. Those fears are probably overblown and there is plenty of evidence to suggest global growth at the margin is still improving," Lanning says.
"We felt we were taking a bit of a bet against the benchmark by being so underweight Europe, and given the sharp falls we have seen and our belief the world is not going to hell in a handcart, we felt we should use it as an opportunity to get a bit more Europe.
"We know Alister well and he is very aware of the macro issues in the region, but he thinks they are isolated and won't stop good quality companies in Europe doing very well. It is an unconstrained benchmark-unaware fund, and his argument is the fact the euro has weakened enormously is actually fantastic news for good quality companies exporting to areas where the growth is."
Lanning has also bought the new Legg Mason Western Global Credit Absolute fund, adding it to Gartmore's MultiManager Absolute Return vehicle.
The fund will be run by its international subsidiary Western Asset Management and managed by Dipankar Shewaram, who Lanning feels has a strong track record running flexible absolute return strategies.
He has moved away from investment grade credit, selling the Schroder All Maturities Corporate Bond fund and adding Absolute Insight Credit.
"While the UK has become a bit of a safe haven and gilt yields have actually fallen, we believe it is a relatively short-term issue," Lanning says. "Gilt yields are more likely to rise in future, and for that reason we believe the easy money in investment grade credit has probably been made.
"As with all our portfolios, we have been moving money away from investment grade credit and into pure credit. The Schroders fund did nothing wrong and we rate Adam Cordery very highly. It was purely an asset allocation call on our part."
