Janus Henderson has appointed Asia fund manager Mike Kerley as deputy to Alex Crooke on the £1.4bn Bankers (BNKR ) investment trust.

Kerley (pictured above), who has run the Asia Pacific portion of the global portfolio since 2006, will assist Crooke who in addition to being a fund manager has been co-head of equities in Europe and Asia for Janus Henderson since 2018.

Kerley will continue to manage Henderson Far East Income (HFEL ) investment trust as well as the Asian Dividend Income Unit  and Horizon Asian Dividend Income  open-ended funds alongside Sat Duhra. Duhra has also been appointed to help Kerley with Bankers’ Asia holdings.

‘This appointment recognises the size and importance of the company to Janus Henderson and the provision of this additional resource is welcomed by the board,’ said Simon Miller, who replaced Sue Inglis as Bankers chair in February.

Bankers announced Kerley’s new role in half-year results showing the trust lagged the FTSE World index in the six months to 30 April with net asset value (NAV) including dividends falling 5.6%, against the benchmark’s 2.6% decline.

Shareholder total returns slid 6.3%, as the share price fell to more than 6% below NAV, prompting the board to spend £8.8m buying back the trust’s shares in the last eight months to narrow the discount.

According to the latest fact sheet at the end of May, Bankers had underperformed the FTSE World over five years with a 48.8% total investment return compared to the benchmark’s 59.5%. Over 10 years, however, it has beaten the index by 35% with total net asset growth of 218.3%, underpinning a total shareholder return of 241.7%.

The 2.1%-yielding portfolio is heavily weighted towards financials and industrials which constitute about 37% of the portfolio, with North American assets totalling 35.4% and those based in the UK, 20.2%. The shares have fallen nearly 18% this year.

Top holdings include American Express, Microsoft and US software company Automatic Data Processing, holding a 6.9% weighting.

Crooke (above) was cautious in his outlook for the year ahead, noting that market volatility would continue until inflationary pressures lessened and investors gained confidence.

‘The resilience of the UK stock market should continue despite the uncertainty stemming from UK politics. US interest rates are forecast to rise to over 2% by December, which will have a cooling effect on the US economy, but we still expect US growth to remain positive and therefore US corporate earnings to grow this year,’ he wrote.

‘Stock markets will remain volatile until there is a clear downward direction in inflationary pressures and investors can gain confidence in stock valuations.’

A first interim dividend of 0.55p per share, an increase of 4.8% on last year, was paid at the end of May. The board has declared a second interim dividend of 0.58p per share, which will be payable on 31 August this year.