Rosemary Banyard has stepped down as a fund manager at Downing five years after joining the firm to launch her own product, the VT Downing Unique Opportunities fund.
She joined from Sanford DeLand Asset Management in 2020 to start the £27m fund which has delivered a bottom quartile return of 40% throughout its lifetime. The IA UK All Companies peer group, by comparison, is up 66% over the period.
Banyard will remain at Downing as a consultant where she will advise the new management team led by Josh McCathie.
He has managed the £33m VT Downing Small & Mid-Cap Income fund since 2021, generating a total return of 4.4% during his tenure. This trails 13.9 percentage points behind the 18.3% return made by its peers in the IA UK Equity Income sector.
As Banyard begins her new role as a consultant, she said: “It has been a pleasure to be a fund manager at Downing and manage DUO, and my standing down from the day-to-day management of it is no reflection of the quality of the underlying businesses in which I have had the pleasure to invest, and which themselves have provided long-term sustainable returns.
“It is a disappointing reflection of the UK regulatory and political eco-system that makes it challenging to grow small and appropriate funds for investors for the long term. I look forward to having a continued relationship with the team at Downing Fund Managers.”
Prior to joining Downing, Banyard managed Sanford DeLand’s Free Spirit fund for almost three years, but spent a lot of her career running small-cap funds at Schroders.
Here, she managed the UK Mid Cap, UK Smaller Companies and Institutional UK Smaller Companies funds.
The latter was Banyard’s longest running fund, which she managed from 1992 to 2015. During that time Banyard delivered a 1039.9% return versus the 517.5% gain made by the FTSE Small-cap benchmark index.
Judith MacKenzie, head of Downing Fund Managers, said: “From day one, working with Rosemary has been a privilege. The depth of her knowledge of the UK small and mid-cap universe is unrivalled. We look forward to her continued support and guidance as she moves into a consultancy role.”