We regret to announce that we have removed the 'A' rating of the Schroder European Equity Absolute Return fund following a prolonged period in which the fund has failed to deliver its performance objective of cash plus 3-5% to investors. We had hoped and expected that returns would improve following the change in strategy in April 2015 from a predominantly UK equity fund to a pan European fund, to match the manager's longstanding and core investment expertise. However, almost three years later this is not evident in the fund's return profile and our level of confidence in the manager's ability to meet this objective in the future has diminished to the point where we feel we can no longer recommend the fund to clients.