DEFT reading of the market has propelled psychology graduates and Japan experts Sarah Whitley and Matthew Brett back to the apex of The Herald's table of top performing fund managers working for Scottish investment houses.
Their stewardship of the £289.72 million Baillie Gifford Japanese fund meant they also entered the UK-wide top 10 at number nine, up from 19th, when the latest performance figures for the three years to the end of June were compiled by financial publisher Citywire.
They last topped the table eight months ago and their rise ended the reign of First State's emerging markets expert Jonathan Asante, who fell to third place in the Scottish rankings after a four-month stint as number one.
He runs Edinburgh-based First State's Global Emerging Markets, Global Emerging Markets Leaders, and Latin America funds.
Ms Whitley, who moved to Edinburgh when she was 12, rowed for Oxford University, where she read experimental psychology.
The sailing enthusiast joined Baillie Gifford after graduation in 1980 and had a stint on the UK desk alongside Max Ward, who went on to establish the Independent Investment Trust.
She became a partner at Baillie Gifford in 1986.
Ms Whitley joined the Japanese equities investment team in 1982 and has headed it since 2001.
Her tenure on the Japanese fund dates back to 2004, while Mr Brett became a manager on the portfolio in 2008.
Mr Brett had joined Baillie Gifford's graduate scheme three years earlier after earning a PhD in Psychology at Bristol. He had previously graduated from Cambridge University.
Their rise to the top of the fund manager table comes at a time when the Japanese economy and the Japanese market are under close scrutiny.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is seeking to stimulate Japan's economy through monetary stimulus and currency depreciation. The apparent early success of this programme has led to stock market gains.
Radical easing by the central bank and increased government spending were the first two parts of a so-called three arrow programme.
They helped exporters such as electronics companies by making their products less expensive overseas.
But there remains some doubt about whether Mr Abe can follow up with a third arrow of structural changes that could help to embed the recovery.
Among the stocks favoured by the Baillie Gifford pairing are Fuji Heavy Industries, owner of Subaru cars. This is their largest holding.
Their fund also has large stakes in computer games company Nintendo and telecommunications company KDDI.
Notwithstanding the rise of Ms Whitley and Mr Brett, Baillie Gifford saw its number of rated managers fall from 18 to 15.
Richard Bell, manager of the Baillie Gifford Phoenix Global Growth, and Patrick Edwardson and Mike Brooks, managers of Baillie Gifford Diversified Growth, lost their ratings due to poor performance.
Citywire's rankings are based on risk-adjusted performance. Fewer than one-fifth of fund managers in the UK qualify for a Citywire rating, of which there were 316 in the month.
The Herald-Citywire survey covers fund managers working for investment houses with a significant presence in Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article