Polar Capital UK Value Opportunities sounds like the sort of fund that should have benefited from the revival in unfashionable areas of the market this year , but in reality it has suffered as much as some of its growth peers . Managers George Godber and Georgina Hamilton put this down to one factor : their higher weighting towards the lower end of the marketcap scale . “ We are a multi-cap fund and 75 % of our investments are in mid and small caps ,” said Godber . “ Since September , underperformance of the FTSE 250 versus the FTSE 100 has been larger than during Covid , Brexit and the global financial crisis .” However , the divergence in performance has also created opportunities in areas that have been left behind this year , which the managers are keen to exploit . The cheapest portion of the FTSE 100 – predominantly made up of tobacco , oil majors and miners – has done well this year in contrast to the rest of the index : dividing the market up into deciles , only the one with the lowest P / E ratios has made money . However , Godber and Hamilton said that in the FTSE 250 , where they have most of their exposure , even the cheapest companies are in the red . “ The benefit of value has been swamped by our multi-cap focus ,” explained Hamilton . “ We would expect to deliver a better performance versus the index in the future when value is doing well , but at the moment it is swamped .”
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