Returns at London-based Jupiter Asset Management are skyrocketing, thanks to the private equity bidding wars, according to the fund manager Ian McVeigh. Over the past 12 months, McVeigh’s U.K. Growth Fund has soared 31% -- almost double of the FTSE All-Share Index -- because has the market savvy to invest in just the kind of companies p.e. funds like: those where earnings are on the rise or are expected to rise, not those needing a turnaround. For example, two of the companies in McVeigh’s portfolio, Informa and Forth Ports, have seen shares surge more than 40% as they are viewed as ripe for takeover. “There is a ton of money flying around and a lot of that firepower hasn’t been invested yet,” McVeigh said in an interview with Bloomberg News. In effect, says BN, McVeigh is “betting on the activities of private equity firms,” which financial adviser Ben Yearsley of the U.K.’s Hargreaves Lansdown, said is OK, as long as that’s not his only strategy. While European buyout firms have sucked in about $91 billion so far this year, that number could dwindle. Rest assured, said McVeigh, his strategy goes beyond what p.e. firms are doing. “We don’t buy bad businesses because of private equity,” he told BN. McVeigh said he has also made money from companies with poor performing stocks as well as those with cheaply priced stock compared with its competitors.
