Legal & General launches European equity income fund
Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM) has added to its equity income range with the launch of the L&G European Equity Income fund.
The new fund – a UK domiciled unit trust – will invest predominantly in European companies (excluding the UK) and aims to generate an attractive yield above the market, while maintaining a “total return mind-set over the longer term”, the company said in a statement announcing the launch.
The fund is managed by fund manager Andrew Koch, who joined LGIM’s Global Equity Income team in 2014 from the in-house pension scheme at BAE Systems. He previously spent ten years at Phillips & Drew managing European, UK and Japanese equities.
Koch said that his team take a “disciplined approach” to portfolio construction, balancing current yield, the potential for dividend growth and the “opportunity for attractive long-term total return”.
50 stocks
“The portfolio is relatively concentrated with approximately fifty stock ideas,” he said. “We invest in companies which represent the best examples of high quality enterprises and which in our opinion look attractively valued versus their peers, their history and the market overall.”
LGIM’s European income strategy has approximately £450m of assets under management.
Honor Solomon, head of retail distribution, EMEA at LGIM, said that the company’s income approach remains “important” in the current low return environment.
