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Although financial gloom is all over and President Trump is causing a rumpus with his 'America first' technique, the UK stock exchange remains unfazed.

Despite a few wobbles recently - and more to come as Trump rattles international cages - both the FTSE100 and broader FTSE All-Share indices have actually been resilient.

Both are more than 13 per cent higher than this time in 2015 - and near tape highs.

Against this background of economic uncertainty, Trump rhetoric and near-market highs, it's hard to believe that any exceptional UK financial investment opportunities for client investors exist - so called 'healing' scenarios, where there is potential for the share cost of particular companies to increase like a phoenix from the ashes.

But a band of fund managers is specialising in this contrarian kind of investing: purchasing underestimated companies in the expectation that in time the market will reflect their real worth.

This undervaluation might result from poor management leading to company mistakes; a hostile financial and financial backdrop; or wider issues in the industry in which they run.

Rising like a phoenix: Buying undervalued business in the hope that they'll eventually soar needs nerves of steel and unlimited persistence

Yet, the fund managers who purchase these shares think the 'issues' are understandable, although it might take up to 5 years (occasionally less) for the outcomes to be shown in far higher share prices. Sometimes, to their dismay, the problems show unsolvable.

Max King invested 30 years in the City as a financial investment supervisor with the likes of J O Hambro Capital Management and Investec. He states investing for healing is high risk, requires perseverance, a neglect for consensus financial investment thinking - and nerves of steel.

He also thinks it has become crowded out by both the growth in inexpensive passive funds which track specific stock exchange indices - and the popularity of growth investing, developed around the success of the huge tech stocks in the US.

Yet he insists that recovery investing is far from dead.

Last year, King states various UK recovery stocks made shareholders spectacular returns - including banks NatWest and Barclays (still recuperating from the 2008 worldwide monetary crisis) and aerospace and defence huge Rolls-Royce Holdings (growing again after the impact of the 2020 pandemic lockdown). They generated respective returns for shareholders of 83, 74 and 90 percent.

Some shares, says King, have more to offer financiers as they advance from healing to development. 'Recovery financiers frequently purchase too early,' he states, 'then they get tired and offer too early.'

But more notably, he thinks that new healing chances constantly present themselves, even in a rising stock exchange. For brave investors who purchase shares in these recovery situations, stellar returns can lie at the end of the rainbow.

With that in mind, Wealth asked four leading fund managers to identify the most compelling UK healing chances.

They are Ian Lance, manager of financial investment trust Temple Bar and Alex Wright who runs fund Fidelity Special Situations and trust Fidelity Special Values. These two supervisors welcome the recovery financial investment thesis 100 per cent.

Completing the quartet are Laura Foll, who with James Henderson runs the investment portfolio of trust Law Debenture, and Imran Sattar of investment trust Edinburgh.

These 2 supervisors purchase healing stocks when the financial investment case is compelling, however just as part of broader portfolios.

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' Recovery stocks remain in our DNA,' says Lance who runs the ₤ 800 million Temple Bar with Nick Purves. 'The logic is basic. A company makes a tactical error - for instance, a bad acquisition - and their share rate gets cratered. We purchase the shares and after that wait for a catalyst - for example, a modification in management or company method - which will change the company's fortunes.

' Part of this process is speaking with the business. But as a financier, you must be patient.'

Recent success stories for Temple include Marks & Spencer which it has actually owned for the past five years and whose shares are up 44 per cent over the previous year, 91 percent over the past 5.

Fidelity's Wright says purchasing healing shares is what he does for a living. 'We buy unloved business and then hold them while they ideally undergo positive change,' he explains.

' Typically, any recovery in the share cost takes in between 3 and five years to come through, although sometimes, as happened with insurance company Direct Line, the healing can come quicker.'

In 2015, Direct Line's board accepted a takeover offer from rival Aviva, valuing its shares at ₤ 2.75. As a result, its shares rose more than 60 percent.

Foll states healing stocks 'are typically huge drivers of portfolio efficiency'. The very best UK ones, she says, are to be discovered amongst underperforming mid-cap stocks with a domestic organization focus.

Sattar states Edinburgh's portfolio is 'diverse' and 'all weather condition' with a focus on premium companies - it's awash with FTSE100 stocks.

So, recovery stocks are only a slivver of its properties.

' For us to purchase a stock, it must be first and foremost a good service.'

So, here are our investment professionals' leading choices. As Lance and Wright have said, they might take a while to make good returns - and absolutely nothing is ensured in investing, especially if Labour continues to make a pig's ear of stimulating economic growth.

But your perseverance might be well rewarded for welcoming 'healing' as part of your long-lasting investment portfolio.

> Search for the stocks listed below, newest performance, yield and more in This is Money's share centre

WINNERS IN A POSSIBLE HOME BUILDING BOOM Marshalls is the country's leading supplier of structure, landscaping, and roofing products - buying roofing specialist Marley 3 years earlier.

Yet it has struggled to grow profits against the backdrop of 'difficult markets' - last month it said its earnings had fallen ₤ 52million to ₤ 619 million in 2024.

The share cost has actually gone no place, falling 10 and 25 percent over the past one and 2 years.

Yet, lower rates of interest - a 0.25 percent cut was announced by the Ban > k of England last Thursday - and the conference of a yearly housebuilding target of 300,000 set by Chancellor Rachel Reeves might assist spark Marshalls' share price.

Law Debenture's Foll says any pick-up in housebuilding should result in a need surge for Marshalls' products, flowing through to greater profits. 'Shareholders could take pleasure in attractive overall returns,' she says, 'although it might take a while for them to come through.' Edinburgh's Sattar likewise likes Marshalls although, unlike Foll who currently holds the company's shares in Law Debenture's portfolio, it is only on his 'radar'.

He states: 'Its sales volumes are still listed below pre-pandemic levels. If the Chancellor does her bit to re-

spark housebuilding, then it must be a beneficiary as a provider of products to new homes.'

Sattar likewise has an eye on home builders' merchant Travis Perkins which he has actually owned in the past. 'It has fresh management on board [a new chairman and primary executive] and I have a conference with them quickly,' he states.

' From an investment perspective, it's a choices and shovels approach to gaining from any growth in the housing market which I choose to buying shares in private housebuilders.'

Like Marshalls, Travis Perkins' shares have actually gone no place, falling by 7, 33 and 50 per cent over one, two and three years.

Another recipient of a possible housebuilding boom is brick producer Ibstock. 'The business has huge repaired costs as a result of heating up the substantial kilns needed to make bricks,' states Foll.

' Any uptick in housebuilding will increase brick production and sales, having an exaggerated benefit on its operating expenses.'

Lower interest rates, she includes, ought to likewise be a positive for Ibstock. Although its shares are 14 per cent up over the past year, they are up a meagre 0.3 per cent over 2 years, and down 11 and 42 per cent over 3 and 5 years.

Fidelity's Wright has likewise been buying shares in 2 companies which would gain from an improvement in the housing market - cooking area supplier Howden Joinery Group and gratisafhalen.be retailer DFS Furniture.

Both companies, he says, are gaining from struggling competitors. In Howden's case, rival Magnet has actually been closing showrooms, while DFS competitor SCS was purchased by Italy's Poltronesofa, bybio.co which then closed many SCS shops for repair.

DFS, a Midas pick last month, has seen its share cost rise by 17 per cent over the previous year, but is still down 41 percent over three years. Howden, a constituent of the FTSE 100, has made gains of 6 percent over both one and three years.

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FUND MANAGER WORTH MORE THAN ITS PARTS Temple Bar's Lance does not mince his words when talking about FTSE250-listed fund manager Abdrn. 'People are right when they explain it as a rather struggling fund management business,' he says.

'Yet what they often do not realise is that it likewise owns an effective investment platform in Interactive Investor and an adviser service that, integrated, validate its market capitalisation. In impact, the market is putting little value on its fund management business. '

Include a pension fund surplus, a big multi-million-pound stake in insurance company Phoenix - and Lance says shares in Abrdn have 'fantastic healing potential'.

Temple Bar took a stake in the company at the tail end of in 2015. Lance is enthused by the company's brand-new management team which is intent on cutting costs.

Over the previous one and 3 years, the shares are down 3 and 34 per cent, respectively.

OTHER RECOVERY POSSIBILITIES Fidelity's Wright says a healing stock tends to go through 3 distinct stages.

First, a business embarks on positive modification (phase one, when the shares are dirt low-cost). Then, the stock exchange acknowledges that modification remains in progress (stage 2, shown by a rising share rate), setiathome.berkeley.edu and lastly the price completely shows the modifications made (phase 3 - and time to think about selling).

Among those shares he keeps in the phase one container (the most exciting from an investor viewpoint) is marketing giant WPP. Wright purchased WPP last year for Special Values and Special Situations.

Over one, two and three years, its shares are respectively up by 1 per cent and down by 22 and 33 percent.

'WPP's shares are cheap because of the tough marketing backdrop and concerns over the possible disruptive effect of artificial intelligence (AI) on its earnings,' he states. 'But our analysis, based in part on talking with WPP customers, shows that AI will not disrupt its business model.'

Other recovery stocks pointed out by our professionals consist of engineering giant Spirax Group. Its shares are down 21 per cent over the past year, but Edinburgh's Sattar states it is a 'dazzling UK commercial company, international in reach'.

He is also a fan of pest control giant Rentokil Initial which has experienced duplicated 'hiccups' over its expensive 2022 acquisition of US business Terminix.

Sattar holds both stocks in the ₤ 1.1 billion trust.