Barings' Cole slashes equity weighting by 15%

Barings' Andrew Cole has slashed the equity weighting on his £28.1m Multi Asset fund by 15% in favour of government bonds as his team becomes increasingly risk averse.

In fact, the portfolio, as well as Cole's £3.4bn institutional fund, has more government bond than equity exposure as the director of asset allocation forecasts markets will fall further on concerns surrounding the eurozone sovereign debt crisis and debates over the US debt ceiling. "We have already lived with a pretty volatile market for the past couple of months but I see us trading sideways or downwards. We are yet to find the bottom of the trading range as there is continued uncertainty about the pace of economic growth." Cole has cut equities, particularly global multi-national h...