BlackRock's Hambro doubles copper exposure

BlackRock's Evy Hambro has doubled exposure to copper equities in his $16.3bn BGF World Mining fund over the past year, taking his position to nearly 18%.

At the end of January 2010, the fund had 9.6% in companies purely producing copper, versus 8% in the benchmark, which Hambro has increased to 17.9% at the end of January 2011, compared with the 10.6% benchmark figure. "Copper has been one of the best performing base metals. The fact we have had large exposure to copper equities and being significantly overweight relative to our benchmark has been a significant contributor to overall return." He adds: "We do not believe the strong pricing environment we think we are in and are likely to remain in is reflected in the valuations of the e...