F&C's Tigue: yen will weaken against sterling

F&C's Jeremy Tigue has moved his short-term borrowings from sterling into yen to benefit from an anticipated strengthening of the pound.

The manager of the £2bn Foreign & Colonial trust has about £50m of short-term borrowings and 9% gearing. This is the first time the trust has borrowed in yen since January 2008, from which time the currency has strengthened by 30% against the pound, according to Tigue. “We wanted to move into another currency and although investors are not very enthusiastic about any of the major currencies, yen is one that has gone up,” he says. “Although we did have concerns about what might happen to sterling around the time of the election, we now think the currency will remain stable. “Howe...