Current Account regularly hears fund managers whinge about the paucity of investment opportunities. So when a block of half a million shares in one of the market's highest-regarded companies comes on the market, one would assume that there would be a scramble to bid. But no. Fund managers, who have become so slavish to the whole euro zone argument, are becoming increasingly blind to the opportunities that exist on their doorstep.

The perfect example of this happened this week when Boston-based Fidelity disclosed that it had picked up another 500,000 IAWS shares to take its stake in the foods group from 7.1 to 8.2 per cent.

That makes Fidelity by far the biggest shareholder after the IAWS Co-op, and it is an extraordinary indictment of our Irish investment institutions' stock-picking talents that not a single one of them has a stake in IAWS above the 3 per cent disclosure level.

One can only assume that whichever broker handled that IAWS deal knew full well that his first call to sell the shares was to Fidelity, given the US group's appetite for a stock which is now trading close to its all-time high, has consistently outperformed the Irish market and which trades comfortably at a substantial premium to the European food sector.

Fidelity investing another €3.5 million-plus in IAWS on a forward multiple of around 25 times earnings is an indication of the confidence the US investment house has in the Irish group.

One must wonder whether the Irish fund managers are turning into a group of passive investors, happy to buy the Eurotop 100 or the Stoxx 50. Is stock-picking going to become a lost art, confined to the likes of Dermot Desmond's IIU, if fund managers turn into passive index-buyers? One hopes not.