Fund Rating Removal for the Legg Mason Brandywine Global Income Optimiser fund

We have taken the decision to remove our 'Positive Prospect' recommendation from the Legg Mason Brandywine Global Income Optimiser fund.

Whilst we continue to like the fixed income team at Brandywine, we have been monitoring the Income Optimiser fund for a number of years now, and this has not been a straightforward period for the fund. In particular, the hedging strategy did not stabilise capital values as well as we had hoped in 2015 and over the last 12 months. The fund has also been unable to attract a meaningful weight of UK assets.

Overall we have lost confidence that the fund remains set up to provide the investor outcomes that we expected on initiating our coverage. We therefore believe it appropriate to remove the fund from our Academy at this juncture, although we will continue to monitor it.