Fund of the Week: Picking the best stocks in Europe

published 11 October 2006

As a fund manager with 11 years of experience at JP Morgan, Scotsman Jim Campbell and co-manager, Italian Francesco Conte of the JP Morgan European Fledgling Investment Trust,"have been in place long enough to have experienced both good and bad times on the continental market", says The Daily Telegraph.

And it's their experience of the bad times that may account for the risk controls they've put in place to limit the fund's weightings by industry, country and stock to within a few percentage points.

However, this slightly cautionary approach hasn't stopped the trust's "thorough management from producing strong performance", says John Newlands of Newlands fund research in Money Observer. Indeed, over the past three years the fund has returned 197% according to investment funds information service Trustnet.com against 117.8% for the benchmark HSBC Smaller European Companies index and 92.8% for the FTSE Europe Ex UK index, says the FT. "Moreover, the trust is attractively priced, standing on a discount of 13%."

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Taking into account factors from earnings growth to p/e valuations, Citywire AAA-rated Campbell employs "a mixture of bottom up, value and growth stock selection styles", says Citywire. Looking at around 1,000 firms with valuations of between e100m [£68m] and e4bn [£2.7bn], he tells The Daily Telegraph that "we focus on the best. There are around 55 holdings, so it's a concentrated portfolio".

Contact: 0500-500324

Name of holding % of assets

JPM Europe Micro Cap 11.9

Nutreco Holding NV 2.5

Sika 2.4

Tecnicas Reunidas 2.4

Valentino Fashion Group 2.3

Holmen 2.3

Oesterreichische Post 2.3

Catalana Occidente Sa De Seguros 2.2

Geberit 2.2

Davide Campari 2.2

Jody studied at the University of Limerick and was a senior writer for MoneyWeek. Jody is experienced in interviewing, for example digging into the lives of an ex-M15 agent and quirky business owners who have made millions. Jody’s other areas of expertise include advice on funds, stocks and house prices.