Schroders Investment Management has launched a new gold fund. The Schroders ISF Global Gold fund will be managed by James Luke and Mark Lacey, members of Schroders' commodities team. Luke is a precious metals specialist and has over 10 years' investment experience, while Lacey has worked for over 20 years in the industry. As well as gold, the Ucits-compliant fund will invest in other precious metal stocks such silver and platinum. The managers will use an unconstrained bottom-up strategy to pick stocks for the fund. Commenting on the launch the managers said that there were many global macro risks, including Brexit, which had driven the price of gold higher and prices would continue to recover due to negative real interest rates: ‘Following 15 years of underperformance relative to the gold price, the gold producers have become very cheap and are discounting gold prices significantly less than current spot prices. The gold company management teams are focused on returns to shareholders,’ they said. Unlike the last decade we do not expect a return to poorly considered “growth at all costs” strategy coupled with value destructive M&A. The renewed focus on returns discipline coupled with higher gold prices has the potential to drive significant improvements in free cash flow from the best managed companies.’
The fund is available for sale in Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK
