Regular readers will know that I have spent much of the last few years feeling extremely irritated with Anthony Bolton. For a long time he was one of the few fund managers in the UK it appeared ordinary investors could trust to make them decent (if expensive) long term returns via his Fidelity Special Situations Fund. Then, having retired triumphant, he returned to the fray a few years back, apparently with a plan to lose the faithful everything he had previously made for them.
The Fidelity China Special Situations Investment Trust was launched in the wrong market at the wrong time and very much at the wrong price. At a time when most investment trusts were already beginning to murmur among themselves about cutting fees, Bolton's new trust came in with a 1.5% management fee and a performance fee. Even worse, Fidelity used some of that high fee base to pay commission to IFAs to shovel people into the fund.
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