Cédric de Fonclare is celebrating his first year as manager of the £275m Jupiter European Special Situations Fund with a 20.8% return. This impressive performance is significantly ahead of the 16.9% recorded by the Europe excluding UK sector average and places the fund 12 out of 95 funds in the sector over that time period*.

Performance has been particularly strong over the past six months, during which period the Fund gained 10.3% against 3.8% for the average, placing it 5 out of 97 funds.*

During the past year, Cédric has made a number of changes to the portfolio - more than half of the names in the Fund have been added in the past 12 months and many of these have produced excellent gains. In the banking sector, for example, Banca Italease and BBVA, both of which were added to the portfolio towards the end of 2005, performed very well on the back of strong earnings.

Performance tyre maker Continental, another new name, also performed well after reporting earnings that beat expectations while Swedish broadcaster MTG, which owns stakes in television networks in several Eastern European countries, has risen nearly 50% compared to about 15% for the benchmark index**.

Cédric takes a positive view of the recent market correction, arguing it was needed in order to blow some of the speculative froth off the top of the market. He said: "Market volatility may continue but European equities have the potential to make good gains for the remainder of 2006. Corporate earnings from the first half of the year, which will be announced between now and September, should be largely positive. In addition, corporate activity is likely to remain a feature of European equity markets for the foreseeable future."

However, Cédric believes that investors need to be increasingly stock-specific as profitability might be close to its peak in certain areas. He said: "There has been some compression in multiples between cyclicals and more defensive growth businesses and this raises the question of what will drive future gains in share prices. I have, as a result, selectively sold down positions in more cyclical areas such as engineering and construction."

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Notes to Editors:

* Source: Standard & Poor's Micropal 18.7.05 to 17.7.06 and 2.1.06 to 17.7.06, bid to bid, net income reinvested.

** Source: Bloomberg

	Year on Year % Growth ending 30.06.2006
	2001-2002		2002-2003		2003-2004		2004-2005		2005-2006
	-7.96%		-11.38%		26.39%		27.61%		31.24%