Mark Barnett joins predecessor Woodford in FE Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame now includes 50 fund managers, with Liontrust UK equities manager Anthony Cross and Royal London sustainable investing manager Mike Fox joining Barnett among the latest additions. It is awarded to managers who have consistently received Alpha Manager ratings over the last seven years.

Barnett is currently fourth-quartile over one and three years across his £9.2bn Invesco Perpetual High Income, £4.4bn Income and £539.9m UK Strategic Income funds. The High Income fund has returned investors 2.7% over three years compared to 17.4% in the sector.

Fidelity was the only fund house that had numerous newcomers in the Hall of Fame with bond manager Ian Fishwick, Asian equities manager John Lo and Asian emerging markets manager Teera Chanpongsang all receiving the accolade. The fund house represented three out of the 13 newcomers.

FE fund analyst Robert Wilson said: “Woodford’s inclusion into the Hall of Fame is no surprise because he has been delivering risk-adjusted alpha and consistent outperformance over the last 7 years – the measure helps strip out short-term market movements, rewards consistency and increasing weightings to longer track records.

“Of course, his most recent underperformance could end up dragging him out again if it continues. It is a similar story for Mark Barnett.”

Ariel Bezalel is one of the newcomers to the Hall of Fame, despite the Sicav version of his Dynamic Bond strategy shedding money on recent poor performance and leading outflows at Jupiter Asset Management. A spokesperson for the firm attributed underperformance to a decision to de-risk early, rather than wait for a deterioration in market conditions and liquidity.

Despite losing investors money over a three-year period, Neil Woodford remains in the Hall of Fame and remains in the exclusive list of fund managers who have featured in the list ever since it launched in 2015. The renowned fund manager has lost investors 0.5% over three years in his Equity Income fund, according to FE data to the period 13 April 2018.

FE research manager Charles Younes said: “Managers retaining their place in the FE Alpha Manager Hall of Fame for the fourth year running include fixed income heavyweights Richard Woolnough of M&G and Fidelity’s Ian Spreadbury.

“US equities manager Jenny Jones of Schroders also made the grade again this year alongside Aberdeen Standard’s Harry Nimmo and Neptune’s Rob Burnett.”

RLAM’s Fox is not the first sustainable investor to feature in the Hall of Fame. He joins David Gait of Stewart Investors and Robin Hepworth of Edentree.

FE Alpha Manager Hall of Fame members 2018