Standard Life Investments UK Equity High Income

 Managed by Karen Robertson since 1996, the fund avoided a lot of the troubles encountered by its peers in 2007 as it had a very limited exposure to cyclical companies linked to the consumer, such as house builders and retailers.  It did underperform a touch in 2007, for the first time in 8 years, a superb track record, over which time it also increased the dividend, on average, by 10% per annum.  The yield is currently 3.5%, and they project 3.9% for 2008.  We expect the manaager to be pro-active in 2008 identifying decent value amongst medium sized and large companies (where it currently has 80% in the FTSE 100 index). 

This is a core medium risk fund, as a long term holding, with an excellent track record of increasing its dividend payout . 

The aim is for investment performance to be consistently above the average fund in the IMA UK Equity Income Sector for periods of up to one year and to be in the top quartile of such funds for any longer periods. While exceptional factors such as one-off special dividend payments by individual companies may result in short term fluctuations in the Fund's income distribution, the core distribution should, at worst, be maintained.