New manager at Foreign & Colonial IT

Mr Niven decides F&C's asset allocation across the company's fund range and has worked closely with Mr Tigue for a decade. He has run F&C Managed Growth Fund (GB0033141846) since 2010, which is in the third quartile of the Investment Management Association Flexible sector over one and three years.

"Asset allocation is a core part of the role of the manager of Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust as underlying regional sub-portfolios are then managed by individual investment desks at F&C or farmed out to external managers," says Jason Hollands, managing director at Bestinvest. "Paul Niven should prove a safe pair of hands."

Peter Walls, manager of IC Top 100 Fund Unicorn Mastertrust (GB0031269367), has Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust as the second largest holding in the fund's portfolio accounting for 3.8 per cent of assets. "I don't intend to alter my position at present," he says. "At the current discount rating I see little downside, as the share buy back policy is robust and the rating relative to peers is attractive."

The trust trades on a discount to NAV of more than 10 per cent.

Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust's management team say this year they will benefit from cash realisations from the private equity portfolio. "In 2015 and beyond, we will get another boost from the repayment of our expensive debenture," they add.

As a result, analysts at Numis Securities believe "that Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust is an attractive way to gain low cost, diversified global equity exposure (its ongoing charge ratio is 0.56 per cent)".

Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust has revenue reserves equivalent to 12.5p per share and its board is targeting a lower revenue reserve. This gives plenty of flexibility to maintain dividend growth over the next few years, according to Numis.

Source: Morningstar.

Performance

TOP TEN HOLDINGS as at 28 February 2014

Asset allocation