wfn.org | PRO-LIFE FUND TOPS DATASREAM LIST OF BEST-

["EAUK Press Office" <press@eauk.org>]

The Evangelical Alliance is launching a media consultancy for 
Christains groups.  This press release is part of that work and 
is issued on behalf of Banner Financial Services.

PERFORMING ETHICAL UNIT TRUSTS
For Immediate Release: 14 January 1999

The CF Banner Real Life Unit Trust - the first ethical unit trust 
in the UK to be based upon rigorous pro-life investment criteria 
- has topped the list of ethical unit trusts. Source: 
Datastream. 

The Fund, which was established by leading ethical 
investment specialist Banner Financial Services in conjunction 
with City Financial Unit Trust Managers only last September, 
achieved an increase in value of 11.9% over the two months to 
January 12 1999 on a mid to mid basis. This is far ahead of 
ethical funds run by competitors that include many leading 
household names. Friends Provident and Scottish Equitable 
both achieved returns of below 5%, while Standard Life's UK 
Ethical Unit Trust managed growth of under 1% during the 
same period.

Banner also announced that, since the original launch, the CF 
Banner Real Life Unit Trust had attracted well over £1m. 
Interestingly all of this has come from retail investors. However 
a number of UK institutions are now considering the Banner 
pro-life strategy.

Banner unashamedly places the emphasis on the value of 
human life. The Trust's investment criteria have been mutually 
agreed by LIFE - Save The Unborn Child, SPUC (Society for 
the Protection of Unborn Children) and the Banner Group. 

This means that The CF Banner Real Life Unit Trust seeks to 
invest in companies which publicly profess their commitment 
to pro-life values, support pro-life agencies, provide a high 
standard of employee welfare, supplying the basic necessities 
of life and services of long term benefit to the community. 

The Fund excludes companies which damage the 
environment; are involved in the production of pornographic 
material or exploit children; manufacture or distribute drugs for 
abortion; support or sponsor abortion or have significant 
involvement in armaments, tobacco, alcohol or gambling. It 
invests primarily in the UK.

The investment adviser to the CF Banner Real Life Unit Trust 
is Fleur Leach of Capel-Cure Sharp. Fleur also manages the 
AES Ethical Unit Trust that comes second behind the CF 
Banner Real Life Unit Trust. Source: Datastream.

Professor the Lord Alton of Liverpool, a director of Banner 
Financial Services Group Ltd, said: "We are delighted that our 
faith in ethical investment in general and the UK's first pro-life 
fund in particular has been vindicated by this excellent result. 
It proves that a pro-life investment stance makes sense 
financially as well as morally, and I hope that the major 
investment institutions will now sit up and take notice.

"We also hope that every diocese, every religious order and 
every Christian charity will reconsider where their funds are 
placed, and look more carefully at ethically-based investment 
strategies in future."

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. The CF Banner Real Life Unit Trust performed third in the 
Datastream survey to 12 January 1999. Jupiter International 
Green is a closed investment trust, and the second placed 
fund - Framlington Health - invests on a different basis to other 
ethical unit trusts. The CF Banner Real Life Unit Trust is 
therefore the best performing ethical unit trust in the UK over 
the period.

2. Banner Financial Services is part of the Banner Group, and 
was established in 1987 to provide independent financial 
advice. The Banner Group provides services to over 5,000 
clients working in 100 countries worldwide. The directors and 
partners are all committed Christians.

3. Capel-Cure Sharp (formerly Albert E Sharp) is the 
investment adviser to the CF Banner Real Life Unit Trust. 
Capel-Cure Sharp was formed by the merger of Capel-Cure 
Myers Capital Management Limited and Albert E Sharp 
following the acquisition of these companies by Old Mutual, 
one of South Africa's largest retail financial services 
organisations,in December 1997 and November 1998 
respectively.

4. As an investment management house specialising in private 
clients, unit trusts, charities and third party funds, Capel-Cure 
Sharp has around £10bn funds under management. This figure 
includes ethical funds in excess of  £170m. Capel-Cure Sharp 
operates from a network of 27 offices throughout the UK; its 
principal place of business is at The Registry, Royal Mint 
Court, London EC3N 4EY. 

5. The total value of the ethical investment market in the UK is 
now in excess of £1.9bn, and it has doubled in the last thirty 
months. It is estimated that there are 312,000 unitholders and 
policyholders in ethical funds in the UK as at September 
1998. (Source: The Ethical Investor, January-February 1999). 
In the United States in excess of $35bn of church investment 
funds are invested in ethical funds, according to the leading 
Roman Catholic newspaper The Universe.

6. Banner Financial Services is an Independent Financial 
Adviser regulated by the Personal Investment Authority.

7. Both Capel-Cure Myers Capital Management Limited and 
Albert E Sharp are regulated by The Securities and Futures 
Authority and are members of the London Stock Exchange.

Enquiries: 

John Jones, Banner Financial Services Group Ltd
Howard Tingley, Banner Financial Services, 
01342-717917 (+44 1342 717917)

or

Iain Taylor, ( mailto: itaylor@eauk.org )
EA Media Consultancy
0171 207 2107 (+44 171 207 2107)

Evangelical Alliance Media Consultancy is a trading name of 
Evangelical Alliance Developments Ltd, a wholly owned 
subsidiary of the Evangelical Alliance UK, 
Whitefield House, 186 Kennington Park Road, 
London, SE11  4BT 

http://www.eauk.org