Finsbury life sciences

Finsbury is set to add a global life sciences fund to its Finsbury Global range of Dublin funds and will also change the manager of two of its Far Eastern funds.

The Finsbury Global Life Sciences fund will be managed by Andrew Clarke of Reabourne, who currently manages the Finsbury Life Sciences UK investment trust.

Colin Edge, director of Finsbury, said: "The UK investment trust, although run by the same manager, is closed-ended and invests only in the UK, continental Europe and Israel. It contains some unquoted stocks.

"The new Dublin fund will be open-ended, global in its investment scope and will not contain unquoted stocks.

"There is a lot of interest in the life sciences sector from investors in Europe and this move will give us a vehicle to satisfy that demand."

As at 31 March 2000, the Finsbury Life Sciences investment trust, was invested 52.6% in UK-listed stocks, 19.9% other European-listed stocks, 2% US-listed, 15.9% AIM-listed and 9.6% unquoted.

The top five holdings were Celltech Chiroscience at 13.3%, Shire Pharmaceutical at 8.7%, Aortech at 8.4%, Cambridge Antibody at 8.3% and Merlin Fund LP at 8.1%.

At the same time, Finsbury has changed the manager of the Global Far Eastern fund, formerly managed by Lloyd George Investment Management, and the Global Japan fund, formerly run by Alex Balfour of EFG. Both mandates will be handed over to Jade Absolute, the new boutique set up by former Perpetual manager Scott McGlashan.

Edge said: "The change is no reflection on the abilities of the previous managers. I have admired Scott McGlashan's investment style for many years. When he left Perpetual we realised it could be a tremendous opportunity to get him to run money for Finsbury."

The hand over of the mandates has not yet been approved by the Central Bank of Ireland but is expected to take place this June.

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