Bottom-up stockpicking is a well-known ethos for Edinburgh-based Baillie Gifford, for which Paice heads up the five crown-rated Baillie Gifford European fund.
Paice says company fundamentals are far more important than economic issues that may affect the countries these businesses reside in.
"I think getting caught up in the macro is the most common disastrous mistake made by investors," he said.
"If you look at the Baillie Gifford European fund, we do focus on the bottom-up approach and we let the forecasters worry about the state of the global economy."
"We have no idea what the outcome of (US Federal Reserve chairman) Ben Bernanke and (European Central Bank president) Mario Draghi’s decisions will have in the future, so we prefer to add value by spending time on high-conviction stockpicking on superior businesses."
"So we are looking for growing and durable companies that are run by sensible people."
While Paice admits looking at macro factors can be more beneficial in the short-term, his firm places more importance on performance in the long-run.
"We have a 20 per cent turnover rate, so we look to hold companies for five or six years in the hope of generating returns for our clients," he said.
According to FE Analytics, the £47.8m Baillie Gifford European vehicle has registered top-quartile performance over three and five years.
Its bottom-up strategy has helped it to weather the financial crash. Over five years it has returned 19.49 per cent while the IMA Europe ex UK sector sustained a loss of 3.21 per cent.
Performance of fund vs sector over 5-yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Paice thinks a bottom-up approach is especially necessary in Europe, as the wider macro view looks distressing.
"The main thing here is to invest in companies, not countries," he continued.
"If you take the classic top-down view, then the European economic picture is structurally challenged and that is a fair summary."
"But the bottom-up approach is a completely different picture, as there are a number of world-class companies in Europe that are not only profitable, but because of market noise, cheap as well."
"This is what is good about being based up in Edinburgh I suppose, because we can ignore macro noise."
"We try to pick companies that will hopefully outperform through thick and thin and judge our performance over three- and five-year periods, because we believe that is a better way of analysing skill."
Ben Ritchie, senior investment manager on the UK and European equities team at Aberdeen, is also a stockpicker and says he always has been. He is grateful he chose this approach to investing, because, as he puts it: "If I had listened to market noise, I would have given up by now."
"It has been an incredibly challenging environment, we have been through a banking crisis, eurozone crisis, deleveraging in the US and a tsunami in Japan."
"I suppose, over the last three or four years all we have heard is macro, macro and macro. However, I don’t think in any other time I have been in the industry that owning the right companies has ever been more important."
"There are companies out there that have continued to prosper even though there are limited international opportunities at the moment."
"On the flip-side, there have been businesses that haven’t had good balance sheets or corporate governance, and have done very badly because of it."
"So in my opinion, bottom-up is the best way."
Ritchie adds that Aberdeen’s stockpicking mantra means that his team does hold a few contrarian plays, but he believes market popularity, or unpopularity, should never govern an investment decision.
"This is the strange thing about stockpicking, because there are great companies out there like Unilever and Rolls Royce that have done very well but whose valuations are quite full."
"People ask us: ‘Why do you own something so expensive?'"
"On the other hand, there are companies that are cheap and people ask: 'Why do you own that?' Tesco is an example, it has had tough times recently but do you expect people to stop doing their shopping?"
"It is all about striking the right balance between valuation and growth potential," he added.