Cautious first year for Moore delivers outperformance

Richard Moore's swift and timely move out of financial and consumer stocks has enabled the Santander UK Growth fund to outperform the sector average

When Spanish banking giant Santander turned its attention to Abbey's mutual fund range after buying the UK bank in 2004, it insisted the group bring management in-house and aim for top-quartile returns. Former Old Mutual manager Richard Moore subsequently came in to run the Santander's main UK mandate, taking over in July last year. The UK Growth fund was previously run on a multi-manager basis, split between JPMorgan, Barclays Global Investors and State Street Global Advisers, but performance was poor. Once crowned as lead manager, Moore immediately adopted a defensive posture by dro...