Foreign & Colonial boss optimistic as trust flourishes

Jeremy Tigue, the City fund manager who has been running the Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust for 15 years, offered the following advice yesterday for successful stock-picking: don't read the newspapers.

While Mr Tigue was being slightly tongue-in-cheek, he said: "If you screen out all of the macro news, you can see that underneath things are going fairly well. Most businesses are ticking over. It's not as bad out there as people are suggesting. Things are ok."

The £2.3bn fund has revealed half-year results that show net asset values up 5.1 per cent to 339.37p. The interim dividend will be 4p, a rise of 33 per cent.

By investing in high-quality companies globally, Mr Tigue believes he can avoid much of the unknown on behalf of his 109,000 clients. His strategy is unaltered despite the eurozone crisis.