AA-rated
Rogan turns to agriculture to fire fund
25/02/08
Gartmore’s AA-rated Neil Rogan says he will be looking
to agriculture to boost his portfolio over the next year.
Rogan, who has been running Gartmore’s Global Focus (Gartmore
Global Focus Acc) fund since January 2001, currently holds two
companies in the agricultural sector, Deere and Mosaic.
He says: ‘The populations of emerging markets are rapidly
changing their diets, steadily eating more protein in the form
of meat and diary products. This change is leading to increasing
demand for beef and milk and therefore more cows are required
which, in turn, need to be fed.
‘At the same time, there is now a move to find alternative
sources to fossil fuels and bio fuels is one way this is happening.
‘
‘Mosaic and Deere are the ways the fund is playing the
agriculture theme at present. Mosiac being a large fertilizer
company and Deere the leading agriculture machinery supplier.’
Talking about the state of the current markets Rogan says: ‘There
are still issues in the financial system which although are more
pronounced in the west, are being exported to the rest of the
world. Credit markets need to function properly again before economies
and markets can make headway.
‘I think the US could well be in recession however we
are not concerned about a global collapse. De-coupling is an
interesting theory and I believe it may well be in effect.
‘The UK market has had a tough start to the year but
I think there could still be investment opportunities in the
UK with some strong franchises.
Rogan says the Gartmore team is also remaining optimistic about
the prospects for China.
‘We still have a favorable view of China and Charlie
Awdry, who manages our Gartmore China Opportunities fund, is
still positive for growth. We have some exposure to stocks that
we believe will deliver unexpected earnings surprise.’
Rogan adopts an investment process which targets 'unexpected growth',
and blends bottom-up stock selection and top-down country allocation
within risk-controls.
Over three years, to the end of January, Rogan has delivered
a 44.24% return versus the average manager return of 35.30%.
Born in Liverpool in May 1960, Rogan graduated in Economics
from Cambridge University.
After a three-year spell with Touche Remnant specialising in
Japanese and global technology stocks he joined Jardine Fleming
and went on to head the firm's Pacific region portfolios division
before joining Gartmore in 1997. |
