Aberdeen had 11 dog funds of its own and is the underlying manager of seven others on behalf of companies including Halifax, Scottish Widows, St. James’s Place and the Trade Union Unit Trust.
M&G Investments was another major culprit in the dog fund stakes, topping the chart by total assets with £6.4bn sitting in such funds.
The twice yearly research defines ‘dogs’ as funds which have underperformed for three consecutive years on the trot, and by more than 10% over the three years.
The report identified a total of 54 ‘seriously underachieving investment funds’ with combined assets of £18bn.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given recent market woes, the number of dog funds has jumped from 37 funds six months ago, and the total assets figure is up from £17.6bn.
Global funds had the highest number of dogs within their ranks at 18, representing 14% of the universe.
The geographic area with the highest manager failure rate is North America, with 10 dog funds representing 18% of the universe.
On the other side of the coin, UK equities, which combines the IA UK All Companies and UK Equity Income sectors, held up well as an asset class with only eight funds out of 246 being dogs.
“Spot the Dog is a reminder that not all investments turn out to be a resounding success – to put it politely – and a few can turn out to be disastrous,” said Jason Hollands, managing director at Tilney Bestinvest.
