UK

Liontrust Asset Management's Jeremy Lang and William Pattisson will leave the company next month, some nine months ahead of schedule.

Invesco Perpetual's head of investment Neil Woodford says defensive areas of the market remain undervalued and offer opportunities to deliver strong dividends and cash flow.

Rathbone is merging the High Income fund into its UK Blue Chip and Growth fund, with current manager Hugh Yarrow set to leave the firm.

Hargreaves Lansdown is recommending the SVM UK Absolute Alpha - which launched this week - via its Wealth 150.

The final definition for the IMA Equity Income and Growth sector has recieved a welcome from asset managers who are saying it will provide investors with greater clarity.

Rathbone Income and Growth has been renamed Blue Chip Income and Growth and will sit in the soon to be established IMA UK Equity Income and Growth sector.

Odey Asset Management intends to launch a UK-focused absolute return fund to be managed by James Hanbury.

M&G is closing its UK Growth Portfolio and merging three funds into other portfolios in its range on 13 March. All four funds of funds are run by George Tsionis.

Staunch contrarian Bill Mott is again bucking a trend in the IMA UK Equity Income sector, boosting the number of holdings in his PSigma Income fund in a bid to capture a thematic-based market revival.

UK small caps have the potential to rally strongly as investors seek to rebalance their portfolios into recovery stocks, says Gartmore's Gervais Williams.