Woodford protege fired from Invesco

MARK Barnett, the one-time protege of fallen fund manager Neil Woodford, has been fired from Invesco Perpetual.

In a dramatic fall from grace for the once lauded manager, Invesco said it had made the decision to end Barnett’s 24-year stint at the firm after listening to client feedback.

The move comes weeks after the 49-year-old was removed from his role managing a second investment trust, the £420m Perpetual Income and Growth Investment Trust, which he had run since 1999.

In December, the board of the Edinburgh Investment Trust decided to get rid of Barnett

(pictured) in favour of a new manager from

Majedie Asset Management. Invesco’s chief investment officer Stephanie Butcher, who was appointed at the beginning of this year, said when she was appointed in January ‘I made it clear I would not shy from introducing change where I saw it necessary’. Even after being fired from the two investment trusts, Barnett was still running a series of open-ended funds for Henley-based Invesco. If an investor had put £1,000 in his Invesco UK Strategic Income fund a year ago, they would now have £657. The same amount in Invesco Income (UK) would now be worth £646, and Invesco

High Income (UK) would have generated £653.

All three funds have significantly underperformed their relative benchmark over both one year and five.

Jason Hollands, of wealth manager Tilney, said: ‘In truth, the writing on the wall for the manager has been there to see for some time, with Barnett moved from head of UK equities to co-head last year and the firm being dropped as manager of the Edinburgh Investment Trust in December.’

Ben Yearsley, director of Shore Financial Planning, noted that Barnett is a traditional ‘value’ fund manager. He invests in stocks which he believes are being neglected by the wider market, in the belief that they are fundamentally solid and will still deliver dividends and eventually pick up. This style has been out of favour for several years as investors have ploughed money into funds which focus on ‘growth’ stocks instead – those which may not yet turn a profit, but are scaling up rapidly.

Yearsley said: ‘Value and UK domestic stocks have not been the place to have been invested for the last four years so arguably he was fighting a losing battle.’

The wider shake-up will see the Invesco UK Strategic Income Fund rolled into the Invesco Income Fund, and a clearer differentiation being drawn between the Invesco Income Fund and the High Income fund.

James Goldstone and Ciaran Mallon will take over the management of the funds. Barnett said: ‘I am extremely proud of my career at Invesco.’