Small-cap fund leads large-cap sector

Positive on growth in European smaller companies, Marco Ricci, manager of Deutsche Asset Management's Europa fund, is holding a 0% cash weighting in the portfolio for the first time in two years. Ricci has managed the fund since joining Deutsche in 1997 and, over three years to 13 June, it has returned 37.6% on an offer to bid basis, compared to a sector average of 9.8%. This places the fund second out of 88 funds in the Europe excluding UK sector over that time period. Europa is essentially a small-cap fund in a large-cap sector but avoids being officially classified in the European s...