"Experience has considerable value in the world of investment because patterns do recur and you do, hopefully, learn to avoid being sucked into things," said Geoff Hitchin (pictured right), who has managed Marlborough Global Bond Fund for more than 23 years.
"To me one of the most important lessons is about relative extremes in the market."
"When markets hit an extreme high or low, someone new to the industry might think that it’s going to go on for forever and jump on the bandwagon, but when you’ve lived through a few ups and downs you don’t feel the same way."
Sue Round (pictured below) has headed up Ecclesiastical Amity UK for 25 years. She says that a long managerial tenure benefits investors who look to manager performance when deciding where to invest their capital.
"One of the benefits of long term management of the same fund is the consistency of process and performance, which becomes even more valuable during periods of market uncertainty," she said. "In addition, a constant change in fund manager can lead to rising costs for the underlying investor and also makes it hard for the investor to judge fund manager value. A long tenure makes this much easier."
Round says she has overseen a number of evolutions in the ethical investment space: "During the 25 years I have been managing the Amity UK Fund, there has been significant growth in the ethical market."
"One clear shift has been a move away from negative to positive screening, accompanied by a plethora of new fund launches which cover all asset classes and geographies."
"We have also more recently seen the emergence of themed funds to cover water, climate change and clean technology."
According to Financial Express data, Hitchin and Round have outperformed their peer groups over five, 10 and 20 years.
Marlborough Global Bond would have returned 250 per cent over the last 20 years while Sue Round’s Ecclesiastical Amity UK would have made investors 152 per cent over the same period.
Performance of funds since Feb-95
Source: Financial Express Analytics