Opportunities in unloved large caps

ON UK INCOME

IAN LANCE, portfolio manager at RWC Partners on UK Income

For more information on UK Income, search Adviserhound.com The last 10 years has witnessed a bear market in large-cap blue-chip businesses such as AstraZeneca and Vodafone in the UK, KPN and Deutsche Telekom in Europe or Merck and Johnson & Johnson in the US. In many cases, the businesses have performed well from an operational standpoint but the share prices have failed to reflect this because valuations at the 2000 market peak were so excessive. For instance, the earnings per share at GlaxoSmithKline have risen from 50 pence in 2001 to 110 pence last year and yet the share price ...