EXCLUSIVE-Investors being lured into turkey funds

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - Investors are being lured into "turkey" funds managed by big brand fund managers -- and could have lost out on profits of up to 30,000 pounds over the past five years, independent research shows.

Investors are being persuaded by "seductive" advertising from many high-profile investment houses to put their money into ailing sectors, according to investment data comparison site Moneyspider.com.

It found that those who had ploughed cash into certain funds run by big brand investment houses -- such as Invesco Perpetual, JP Morgan Fleming, Jupiter, Threadneedle and Aberdeen Asset Management -- had suffered below sector-average performance.

They could have achieved far rosier returns by investing in different funds with the same managers.

A 5,000-pound investment in Invesco Perpetual's Latin American fund, for example, would have made 31,035 pounds over the past five years.

That 620.7 percent return far outstrips the sector average of 113 percent.

But the same sum invested in Invesco Perpetual's struggling North American US equity fund would have returned a paltry 230 pounds -- a mere 4.6 percent rise that grossly underperforms the sector average of 28.1 percent.

Similarly, Jupiter's Emerging European Opportunities has risen 525.3 percent over the past five years, compared to an industry average of 257.5 percent.