Hi

IMHO I'd stick with investing in the global growth IT sector. You get excellent diversfication and long term performance in a one-shot, fire and forget investment. Picking single sectors, if you don't have time to follow stocks or UTs/ITs is probably a bad idea, as you need to be quite aware of what's going on and be able to switch in and out. Also, if you only want to add one more IT to your portfolio, picking a single region/asset class/sector IT seriously risks unbalancing your portfolio and adding to your investment risk (risk - by which I mean the risk of getting it wrong, not some crappy variability measure, before someone pulls me up on this point!). Global growth ITs are excelllent investment vehicles which avoid these problems.

So what might complement your holding in F&C? F&C's actually behaves rather similarly to a tracker, judging by costs and performance relative to the FTSE. In other words, I wouldn't bother looking at a UK IT tracker! It invests about 50% of its assets in tke UK and the rest spread fairly around the major world markets. It invests almost entire in quoted equities and the top ten holdings read like the FTSE 100 top ten. Maybe it's worth looking at global growth ITs which have a different investment style (not index led), invest in different regions (you mentioned emerging markets) or invest in different assets classes (unquoted invesments, hedge funds, property, etc.) as a complement to F&C (which still remains an excellent core investment). The thing to avoid is ending up with another global growth IT that has a different name but fundamentally does the same thing as F&C - in other words, don't even bother looking at trust such as Witan, Alliance, Scottish Mortgate, Monks, etc. Here are some suggestions of some "different" global growth ITs to look at:

RIT Capital Partners - A personal favourite. It invests in a variety of asset classes (included quoted & unquoted equites, bonds, hedge funds, property), has managers which take a very long term view and don't follow market trends and long term performance is excellent. I think the guys running this trust are very screwed on! The only thing that would stop me investing in this IT at the minute is the high premium (around 6%) but others might beg to disagree.

Electric & General - This IT invests primarily in global equities and the geographical spread looks quite conventional. But when you look at the portfolio makeup, you realise that this is far from a closet index tracker! The managers have a very contrarian, long term value approach and, again, don't follow trends. Nils Taube is a bit of an investment legend, having been around, and been very sucessful, for a long time. He was in charge of RIT's equity portfolio for many years. (Actually, it was an interview with Taube I read in a newspaper way back that led to me investing in RIT, because I was so impressed by what he said and his perspective on investment, he really blew me away!) The managers have only been in place for a couple of years (the 5 year performance record is a little meaningless) but have an excellent track record with other funds. Discount is a reasonable 6%. A personal pick.

SVM Global Fund - This is more like a fund of funds, with a very wide geographical spread and a lot of investments in emerging markets, especially eastern europe and the far east. It's an excellent way to get exposure to emerging markets, but there is also a fair mix of investments in more developed markets too. Performance has been excellent. My only concern is that this really is a momentum fund and a lot of its investments are in funds/markets that have performed well recently - it might not be the best time to buy.

EP Global Opportunities - This is a relatively new IT, but one set up by a management team with an excellent track record. It has a wide geographical mandate and a very value driven investment process that I like the look of a lot. The geographical spread is quite unlike the majority of other global growth ITs, with a relatively high weighting in emerging markets/far east/japan. Slight problem with the premium at the minute. Otherwise another personal pick.

Anglo & Overseas - Same guys runnning this one as EP Global Ops, so the same comments apply. This IT has a more conservative geographical mandate however, and it has a more conventional UK weighting. Otherwise it looks good and is selling at a discount. If you like EP but would rather have a higher UK weighting, this is the one to go for.

British Empire Securities & General - This trust is running by a bunch of value investors, particularly investing in asset situations. They've done exceptionally well recently and the portfolio makeup is very unconventional. Relatively high weighting in europe (their speciality - they've successfully exploited valuation anomolies that arise in european holding companies, which has been a big driver of their performance) and the far east/japan (on general valuation grounds). I like the investment style here a lot and these guys clearly know what they do well, and keep on doing it. However, I'm generally wary of buying into investments that have done exceptionally well in recent times and this might not be the best time to buy.

For sure, there are more ITs in a similar vein, but these are ones I know something about, either because I have, have had, or am contemplating having investments in them! Hope this gives you some starters anyway. As ever, this is all my personal opinion and DYOR.

Courant


Disclaimer - I have holdings in RIT and SVM (soon to be sold and replaced by EP Global Ops).