Jayesh Manek (born 1956 in

Uganda Uganda, officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the ...

) is a British

fund manager Fund may refer to: * Funding is the act of providing resources, usually in form of money, or other values such as effort or time, for a project, a person, a business, or any other private or public institution ** The process of soliciting and gathe ...

. He was the winner of the Sunday Times Fantasy Fund Manager competition in 1994 and 1995, beating thousands of other entrants and winning £100,000 on each occasion. This attracted the attention of

John Templeton Sir John Marks Templeton (29 November 1912 – 8 July 2008) was an American-born British investor, banker, fund manager, and philanthropist. In 1954, he entered the mutual fund market and created the Templeton Growth Fund, which averaged gro ...

, who gave Manek £5 million to invest in July 1995 and a further £5 million in June 1996.

Funds

In 1995 Manek helped found India Value Investments, a Mauritius-based investment firm investing in Indian equities. In December 1997, Manek became the first British Indian fund manager, establishing the Manek Growth Fund, a

unit trust A unit trust is a form of collective investment constituted under a trust deed. A unit trust pools investors' money into a single fund, which is managed by a fund manager. Unit trusts offer access to a wide range of investments, and depending on ...

open to public investment. By 2000, having attracted over £100 million in investment to the Growth Fund, the fund was up by 160%, and worth nearly £300 million. The

dot-com crash The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

saw values crashing, and since that time Manek Growth has been a poor performer. In the 1, 3, and 10 years to 2 January 2012, Manek Growth was the worst performing fund in its sector. Heavy holdings in individual, high-risk shares has seen fund values fluctuate wildly, but the long-term trend is only down, and Manek Growth is as of 18 April 2012 worth less than its launch price. Analysis of Manek's long-term failure has noted that he made multiple entries into the Sunday Times competition and that his high-risk approach might result in big short-term gains, ideal in a competition where the only prize is for coming first (most growth), but when real money is at stake, risky. In December 2017, with the Manek Growth Fund having fallen by 55% over the past ten years (as opposed to an average rise of 269% for his peers), Manek closed the fund entirely, with investors being redeemed.

Biography

Manek left Uganda following the

purge In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertaking such an ...

of Asians by

Idi Amin Idi Amin Dada Oumee (, ; 30 May 192816 August 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and politician who served as the third president of Uganda from 1971 until Uganda–Tanzania War, his overthrow in 1979. He ruled as a Military dictatorship, ...

, in 1971, and has a degree in Pharmacy from

Brighton Polytechnic The University of Brighton is a public university based in Brighton on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achieved university status in 1992. Th ...

. He founded his own chain of pharmacies, Dallas Chemists, prior to becoming a fund manager. Dallas Chemists was purchased by

Alliance Unichem Alliance Healthcare, formerly Alliance UniChem, is a wholesaler, distributor and retailer of pharmaceutical, surgical, medical, and healthcare products throughout Europe. The company supplies more than 110,000 pharmacies, doctors, health centres ...

in 1999.

References

External links

India Value Investments Limited
Mauritius-based fund investing in Indian shares, of which Manek is a Director {{DEFAULTSORT:Manek, Jayesh 1956 births British people of Indian descent Ugandan emigrants to the United Kingdom Ugandan people of Indian descent British people of Indo-Ugandan descent Living people British money managers Alumni of the University of Brighton Ugandan refugees