Barnett ousted from PLY: Justified or a 'Doctor Doom' moment?

Could spell bottom for value, say experts

Lauren Mason
clock • 4 min read

Today's news (6 April) that Mark Barnett and Invesco will no longer be running the Perpetual Income and Growth trust (PLY) comes as "little surprise" to many investment professionals given its underperformance over recent years, but will likely be viewed as an attractive prospect for fund managers given its shareholder base and 'dividend hero' status.

Others, meanwhile, have questioned whether the removal of Barnett from the £620m trust resembles the sacking of well-known contrarian manager Tony Dye in 2000, who avoided tech stocks during the run-up to the bursting of the dotcom bubble. PLY, which has been managed by Barnett for more than 20 years, has underperformed both its FTSE All-Share benchmark and its average peer in the IT UK Equity income sector over one, three, five and ten years, having been the single-worst performing UK equity income trust over the last half a decade. Over the last three months alone, it has lost 41.9%, a...

To continue reading this article...

Join Investment Week for free

  • Unlimited access to real-time news, analysis and opinion from the investment industry, including the Sustainable Hub covering fund news from the ESG space
  • Get ahead of regulatory and technological changes affecting fund management
  • Important and breaking news stories selected by the editors delivered straight to your inbox each day
  • Weekly members-only newsletter with exclusive opinion pieces from leading industry experts
  • Be the first to hear about our extensive events schedule and awards programmes

Join now

 

Already an Investment Week
member?

Login

More on Investment Trusts

Although the sector closed the year in positive territory, investment trust performance was 'well behind' US and global equity market indices.

Investment trusts close 2023 with 4.6% performance boost

Numis research

Cristian Angeloni
clock 03 January 2024 • 3 min read
Charlotte Cuthbertson (pictured), fund manager at Asset Value Investors and co-manager of MIGO Opportunities trust

AVI's Charlotte Cuthbertson: The resilient reinvention of investment trusts

Autumn of 2023 'golden period' for ITs

Charlotte Cuthbertson
clock 21 December 2023 • 5 min read
The total debt for the company stood at $674m as of 31 September, which represented 32.0% of operative NAV.

Hipgnosis narrowly avoids share suspension with publication of interim results

Continued tension with investment adviser

Eve Maddock-Jones
clock 21 December 2023 • 3 min read
Trustpilot