On February 2, 2011 Martin Gray, Manager of the CF Miton Special Situations Fund, spoke with Tim Price and Killian Connolly of PFP Wealth Management. A transcript of the interview follows.
Tim Price: Is the financial crisis over ?
Martin Gray: I?m still pretty cautious. I?ve positioned the portfolio fairly defensively as we?ve gone through this crisis, and I?m happy to stay reasonably defensive in my funds. In so far as the financial crisis is concerned, I think there?s more to come. I think we still have a solvency crisis, more so than just a banking crisis or a financial crisis. I?m happy to be reasonably defensive at the moment and see how things pan out.
Tim Price: What would cause you to be slightly more upbeat ?
Martin Gray: One of the key things would be to see unemployment in mature economies to start decisively to come down. I?m not seeing or hearing any room for improvement yet in the UK, Japan, places like that.. We?ve had very little real wage growth in the mature economies through the last 10 years, so I think that would be a key metric.
Tim Price: What?s the objective of your fund, particularly the CF Miton Special Situations Fund ?
Martin Gray: Quite simply, it?s a global balanced fund. I look to make money in any areas; I don?t run to the benchmark; I?m looking to make money wherever I can. I don?t have any limits in terms of what I can hold, except perhaps in risk.
Killian Connolly: What investment products do you allocate towards in pursuit of the fund?s objective ?
Martin Gray: I use a wide range of underlying assets: broadly speaking closed-end funds; open-ended funds; direct equities; direct bonds, like Gilts; ETFs [exchange-traded funds]; occasionally structured products. Direct equities would usually only be UK equities.
Killian Connolly: And derivatives ? Is the fund exposed to any kind of esoteric products ?
Martin Gray: Nothing particularly esoteric at all. The fund itself has no enhanced powers so I am restricted in that respect, but that?s how the fund has always been in its 13-year life, so why change it ?
Tim Price: Can you say a little about the parent group ?
Martin Gray: It?s been through quite a lot of change over the last couple of years and it?s now a purely asset management business, renamed at Group…
