Anthony Bolton vows to stay on with troubled China fund
STAR fund manager Anthony Bolton has vowed to continue running the £521m Fidelity China Special Situations trust for two more years in a bid to reverse its dramatic slump.
Yesterday Fidelity said Bolton would stay an extra year beyond that already agreed, until at least April 2014.
The veteran manager said the performance of the fund, which has lost 21 per cent of its value since it was launched two years ago, was “a factor” in his decision.
He has now introduced more rigorous checking processes, including the work of several firms to do due diligence to back up his own research, after several stocks he bought listed in the US through reverse mergers, which are subject to less scrutiny.
Late last year Bolton apologised for the “very poor” performance of China Special Situations and said his optimism for Chinese prospects has been “severely tested”. He is still bullish on China, but “not in the short-term”.
Bolton postponed retirement in order to move to Hong Kong to manage the fund. He had one of the best pedigrees in the investment community and achieved an annualised 20 per cent return over 28 years at his former UK fund.