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By Mark Dampier, Head of Research, Hargreaves Lansdown

Top performing fund managers tends to be competitive people.

There are few jobs where the results are so transparent; at any point you can instantly see how well a fund is performing compared to its rivals.

One way of turning this competitiveness to your advantage is to pit fund managers' abilities against each other. This concept caught investors' imaginations last year with a number of high profile fund launches. A group of fund managers were each given a portion of a fund to manage and asked to choose just their best ideas.

Each area of the fund was entrusted to a specialist. Restricting the managers' choice to a select few holdings focused their minds "there is no room for 'maybes' in these portfolios" and the rivalry between these managers has been a fierce stimulus to perform.

The initial signs are encouraging. Each fund is off to a flying start, but please remember it is early days, past performance is not a guide to the future and that all investments can fall in value as well as rise. The two Skandia Best Ideas funds attracted the lion's share of the interest. However, there was another, slightly different but in our view equally promising, fund which was somewhat overlooked by private investors - The Rensburg UK Managers' Focus Trust.

This fund relies on the in-house talent of four of Rensburg's highly respected UK team. Colin Morton will choose ten FTSE100 companies, Paul Spencer will select ten medium-sized companies, Stuart Sharp can invest in twenty smaller companies and Mark Hall will hold up to ten companies of any size, depending on where he sees the best opportunities. New money coming into the fund is split equally between the four managers. This removes the decision of how much to invest in each area and allows each manager to focus solely on picking their highest quality stock ideas.

Working for the same company should further intensify the rivalry between managers. They all have access to the same analytical resources at Rensburg so they view this fund as a showcase for their individual talents.

We believe this fund will appeal to a wide range of investors. Although there are only 50 stocks in the fund the portfolio is well diversified across the whole of the UK market. Rensburg have an exceptionally strong UK team and this portfolio harnesses all their skills in a single fund. We believe investors will be rewarded by this approach over the longer term.

The Rensburg UK Managers' Focus Trust is available through Hargreaves Lansdown with an initial saving of 5.25%. Investors can apply online with a debit card or download application forms or transfer forms from our website.

The Fund of the Month is written by Hargreaves Lansdown. An independent broker offering unit trust, stockbroking, pension and investment services.

Useful links
See details of Rensburg UK Managers' Focus Trust
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