Robert has demonstrated over a number years the ability to achieve long term out performance without taking extreme risk
The US market is notoriously difficult for active managers to outperform; the argument is that it is highly efficient and therefore investors would be better to hold a fund that tracks the index rather than paying for active management.
Many managers privately agree that the only way to achieve consistent long term outperformance is by exploiting short term inefficiencies in the market. This sounds obvious but with the US market it can only be done by luck or a sound and tested process.
Therefore unless investors can uncover those hidden gems (exceptional fund managers) then they are probably better to take the passive route.
One hidden gem which seems to have been under promoted is Robert Siddles who for over 12 years managed the F&C US Smaller Companies Fund, and previous to that was head of the US team at Gartmore. The F&C Fund has an exceptional track record and Robert recently left F&C to set up and run the Jupiter US Small and Midcap Companies Fund.
It is testament to his skill that the board of the F&C US Smaller Companies Trust also moved this to Jupiter to ensure that the fund continued to benefit from his skills.
We first met Robert in 2013 when he was at F&C and this update follows a meeting with him now he is at Jupiter. The key message is that nothing has changed it is the same process but has the advantage of a larger support network to feed in ideas.