Three-year tally shows Baillie Gifford far outpaces its rivals

City Editor

Monday 8 October 2012

VENERABLE Edinburgh investment house Baillie Gifford has as many representatives in The Herald's monthly table of top-performing asset managers working for Scottish houses as its nearest three rivals put together, after the latest figures for the three years to August 31 were tallied by financial publisher Citywire.

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Tim Sharp City Editor

Baillie Gifford's total of 12 rated managers was left unchanged from the previous month.

It also kept its hold on the top of the table as Douglas Brodie, manager of the Baillie Gifford British Smaller Companies fund unseated colleague Robert Baltzer, manager of its High Yield Bond and Investment Grade Long Bond funds, who dropped back a place.

However, second placed Aberdeen Asset Management saw its tally of rated managers fall from six to five as the performance of its Multi Asset fund led to Fiona Gillespie's performance exiting the list.Meanwhile, First State lost Andrew Nicholas, manager of its Asian property securities and global property securities, also on performance grounds. This took its numbers on the list to four.Standard Life Investments is one of a number of fund houses with three managers in the table. It lost Will James, manager of its European Equity Income fund; Thomas Moore, who oversees the UK equity Unconstrained fund; and Jaime Ramos-Martin, manager of the European Equity Growth fund, all on performance grounds. But Kenneth Nicholson, manager of the Standard Life SICAV European Smaller Companies fund joined the table.Artemis, Franklin Templeton, Ignis, Kames Capital, and SVM also have three managers each on the list.Mr Brodie's rise to the top came after he secured third place last month. He has been with Baillie Gifford since 2001 and is head of its global discovery team.He graduated with a degree in molecular biology and biochemistry from Durham University in 1997 and obtained a doctorate in molecular immunology from the University of Oxford four years later.The fund he runs has anything between 50 and 80 holdings, targeted at companies with strong earnings per share and cash-flow growth.His top three holdings are animal breeding company Genus, IP Group, which commercialises university research, and antibody supplier Abcam. His UK-wide ranking rose from 27th last month to 24th.Chris Bowie, manager of the Ignis Bond Fund, who topped the table for several months earlier this year, fell to third spot from second.Harry Nimmo, manager of the Standard Life Global Smaller Companies and Standard Life Investments UK Smaller Companies funds, took fourth spot after surging up the rankings from 15th place last month.Fewer than one-fifth of fund managers in the UK qualify for a Citywire rating, of which there were 280 last month. Rankings are based on three-year, risk-adjusted performance against relevant benchmarks.

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Three-year tally shows Baillie Gifford far outpaces its rivals

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