Baillie Gifford is the larger asset management house that has the most funds making top-quartile returns in the rollercoaster market conditions of 2020, analysis by Trustnet reveals. 
The coronavirus pandemic and economic uncertainty that followed in its wake led to heavy sell-offs in risk assets and has left many funds sitting on negative returns for the first four months of 2020. However, as we recently explored, individual funds have given their investors very different results.
In this study, Trustnet has taken the performance of every Investment Association fund for the first four months of 2020 and collated them by management group to find out which firms have the biggest proportion of their line-up in the first quartile of their respective sectors.
This does mean that funds in sector where quartile rankings are not appropriate – such as IA Specialist, IA Targeted Absolute Return and IA Unclassified – are not covered in this research.
When looking at the groups with 15 or more eligible funds (smaller groups will be covered in a future article), it was Baillie Gifford that sat at the very top of the list.
We reviewed 31 of Baillie Gifford’s open-ended funds in this research and 21 of them – or two-thirds – are in the top quartile of their peer group. It also has five each in the second and third quartiles, with none in the bottom.
Among its top-decile strategies this year are the £1.2bn Baillie Gifford International, £3.5bn Baillie Gifford Global Alpha Growth and £815m Baillie Gifford European funds.
The Edinburgh-based fund house, which was founded in 1908 and is privately owned, has achieved strong long-term returns and prides itself on having a focus on innovative, growth businesses, labelling this in its marketing as ‘actual investment’.
“Actual investment is not easy in our world of 24-hour news, where complexity and noise is confused with rational judgement. It requires the resolve to focus only on what really matters, to think independently and to maintain a long-term perspective. It requires a willingness to be different, to accept uncertainty and the possibility of being wrong,” the group said.
“Most of all, it requires a rejection of the now conventional wisdom that has led our industry astray: investment management is not about processing power, trading and speed. It is about imagination and creativity, and working constructively on behalf of our clients with inspiring individuals and companies who have greater ideas than our own.”
Source: FE Analytics, as at 30 Apr 2020
In second place is Wellington Management Funds. Over 2020 to the end of April, 11 of its 23 funds had made top-quartile total returns, or 47.8 per cent of its offering covered by this research; it has four funds (17.4 per cent) in each of the remaining three quartiles.
Wellington is one of the world’s largest privately owned fund managers, with total assets under management of $1trn. Although it is better known in the US than the UK, its range in the Investment Association covers equities, fixed income, multi-asset and alternatives.
Wellington Global Quality Growth, Wellington Global Bond and Wellington Global Health Care Equity are some of the firm’s top-quartile funds over 2020 so far.
Columbia Threadneedle Investments comes in third place, with 24 of its 51 funds – or 47.1 per cent – achieving top-quartile returns over the period under consideration.
Among these 24 funds are well-known strategies such as Threadneedle UK Equity Income, Threadneedle European Select, Threadneedle Managed Equity & Bond and Threadneedle Global Select.
The table above shows all the bigger asset management houses that have more than one-quarter of their eligible funds in the top quartile and most of the industry’s best-known names – such as BlackRock, Fidelity and Aberdeen Standard Investments – appear on it.
Jupiter didn’t quite make it with only 23.7 per cent of its funds making top-quartile returns, while Schroders (12.3 per cent), Invesco (9.1 per cent) and M&G UK (8.7 per cent) are found towards the bottom of the overall list.
However, only one fund group has no funds in the top quartile over 2020 to date: HBOS Investment Fund Managers, which runs the likes of Halifax UK Growth, Halifax Cautious Managed and Halifax UK Equity Income.
Source: FE Analytics, as at 30 Apr 2020
Flipping things on their head, the above table reveals the larger fund houses with the biggest proportion of their line-up in the bottom quarter of their sectors.
Close to 60 per cent of funds run by Barclays are bottom-quartile this year, including Barclays GlobalAccess Emerging Market Equity, Barclays GlobalAccess Global Corporate Bond and Barclays UK Alpha.
Invesco also has more than half of its range in the fourth quartile, or 24 out of 44 funds. Those near the bottom of their sectors include well-known names like Invesco High Income, Invesco Monthly Income Plus, Invesco Income, Invesco Asian and Invesco European Equity.
Schroders and M&G UK – two of the largest fund management groups in the UK – are also highlighted in the above table with more than 40 per cent of their ranges at the bottom of their sectors.
These underperformers include some of the groups’ most prominent offerings, such as M&G Optimal Income, M&G Global Dividend, Schroder Income, M&G Recovery and Schroder UK Mid 250.