Invesco Income (GB00BJ04HX60) and Invesco High Income (GB00BJ04HQ93), UK equity funds run by Mark Barnett, have suffered a fresh blow after Invesco marked down the value of their unquoted holdings by 60 per cent. The markdowns were made after a review by the company’s pricing committee and reflect current market conditions. Invesco now plans to entirely dispose of these funds' unquoted investments, which represented 5.2 per cent of Invesco High Income's assets at the end of January, and 5.8 per cent of Invesco Income's assets.
“Our UK equities funds have seen changes in portfolio mix over the last year as we continue to work on behalf of our clients’ best interests over the short and longer term,” the firm said in a statement. “Over that period we have substantially increased liquidity within our UK portfolios and increased allocations to a number of larger-cap names. We have decided that now is the right time to go further with these changes and to dispose of unquoted assets held in those funds in order to redeploy capital raised to publicly quoted assets.”
Fund research company Morningstar downgraded Mr Barnett’s funds in November, citing concerns about liquidity. Mr Barnett responded by saying such concerns were “misplaced”, adding that his funds were “appropriately positioned, well diversified and able to generate liquidity should investors wish to buy or sell”.
The funds have also performed poorly in recent years, for example falling around 37 per cent over the past three years.
Perpetual Income and Growth Investment Trust (PLI), meanwhile, which is also run by Mr Barnett, has exposure to these unquoted assets. And following the writedown, unquoted investments account for less than 1 per cent of its assets.
