Investments

Britain’s Worst Fund Manager Says Goodbye

Britain’s worst investment fund manager is shutting shop after spending two decades propping up industry performance tables.

Jayesh Manek was once lauded as a leading light in fund management after scooping the £100,000 prize two years running in a newspaper fantasy fund competition in the Nineties.

The feat won him £10 million backing from investing guru John Templeton.

Manek gave up his job as a pharmacist to take a new career path as an investment fund manager.

But the Manek Growth Fund turned out to be a misnomer as investors regularly lost money at a time when other funds were posting mammoth gains.

Bottom of ratings for 17 years

His rivals posted an average return of 296% since 2007, when Manek opened for business, while his fund showed a 53.18% loss.

In July, the fund posted a return of -73% for the period starting October 2000.

The best performing fund over the same period was the Aberdeen Emerging Markets Equity Fund, with a huge gain of 1023.9%

His fund has stayed at the bottom of every appropriate category of trade body the Investment association’s performance indicators out of 250 members for 17 years.

At one stage, the fund attracted £100 million of investment, and some astute stock picks saw the value jump up to around £300 million, but he never replicated his fantasy success and disappointing results since have seen this drop to just £8 million.

Letter to investors

Manek intends to close the fund on December 28 and has posted a letter to investors on his web site.

“The Manek Growth Fund is to close and commence winding up from Thursday, December 28 2017 with the last day of dealing at the final valuation point of 10am on Wednesday, December 27 2017, after which point dealing in the fund will be suspended,” says the web site.

In a letter to investors he explained the fund size was not viable.

“We have monitored the overall investment in the fund and have concluded it is below the minimum sustainable value,” Manek told investors.

“We believe, that continuing to operate the fund at this level would not be economically viable as the fund size is too small to be managed efficiently.”

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