EMERGING market debt investors Laura Burakreis and Marco Freire of Franklin Templeton have taken to three months their run at the top of The Herald's table of fund management houses with a strong Scottish presence, but the leaders face a new threat from Artemis's Jacob de Tusch-Lec.

With the upper echelons of the Scottish rankings largely unchanged, the Franklin Templeton pair, who manage the Templeton Emerging Markets Bond Fund alongside Michael Hasenstab, again saw off Baillie Gifford's Japanese managers Sarah Whitley and Matthew Brett when performance figures for the three years to January 31 were compiled by financial publisher Citywire.

However, both sets of managers saw their wider standings slip. Ms Burakreis, who is based in San Mateo, California, and Mr Freire, who operates out of Sao Paulo, were ranked 27th of asset managers in 35 countries whose performance is measured by Citywire, the highest ranking among those working for investment houses with a significant presence in Scotland. This was a fall from 17th the previous month.

Ms Whitley and Mr Brett, who previously led the Scottish table for five consecutive months, dropped from 31st to 52nd spot.

The upper reaches of the rankings were gatecrashed by Jacob de Tusch-Lec, manager of the Global Income and Monthly Distribution funds run by Edinburgh asset management house Artemis, who secured fifth spot in the Scottish table, up from 22nd in January.

He saw his wider ranking improve from 375th to 90th.

Mr Tusch-Lec, an economics graduate, started his investment management career in 1998 at Copenhagen-based BankInvest, where he was a portfolio manager specialising in central and eastern European equities. In 2002, he joined Merrill Lynch's global equity macro research department as vice president of pan-European equity strategy.

Mr Tusch-Lec returned to managing money in 2005 when he joined Artemis. He ran the Artemis Capital Fund from January 2006 until June 2010, when he switched to Artemis Global Income on its launch. He has also managed, with colleague James Foster, the Artemis Monthly Distribution Fund since its launch in May 2012.

Mr Tusch-Lec's rise knocked back former table-topper Audrey Ryan, manager of the Kames Ethical Cautious Managed, Kames Ethical Equity and Kames UK Opportunities funds, who slipped to sixth spot in the Scottish ranking.

This was despite the Edinburgh-based manager's wider ranking improving from 11th to 102nd.

Another manager soaring up the rankings was Margaret Lawson, another former Scottish number one who secured seventh place.

Ms Lawson, co-founder of Edinburgh house SVM, runs its UK Growth fund.

Ms Burakreis joined Franklin Templeton in 2006 as a research analyst for its fixed income group, having previously worked at the World Bank and at investment bank Salomon Brothers.

She is responsible for analysis of sovereign credits and global macroeconomic trends with a particular focus on Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Mr Freire is Franklin Templeton's Brazilian fixed income chief investment officer. He joined the house in 2007, having been a portfolio manager for Bank Boston Asset Management.