The average outperformance of its four actively-managed equity funds has been 35.5% over the past five years, putting it comfortably top of the table, according to FE data.
It was followed in second by Stewart Investors which had average outperformance of 28.3% across its seven active funds, then in third place was Old Mutual Global Investors which had average outperformance of 23.4% across 17 funds.
The biggest improvers in ranking from last year were Aviva (+25), Alliance Trust (+18), Man GLG (+15), Newton (+15) and Barclays (+13). The biggest fallers were JOHCM (-18), Scottish Widows HIMFL (-11), Aberdeen (-11) and Lazard (-10).
Other key findings from the FundCalibre research included identifying five fund groups which had every qualifying fund outperform over the past five years; Unicorn, Stewart Investors, T Rowe Price, Rathbones and SVM.
A significant gap in performance between the best and worst fund groups was also evident according to the ratings house. The average fund’s outperformance from Unicorn was 50% higher than the average fund’s results from the bottom group, NFU Mutual.
Investment style was found to have an impact on the rankings as well. Growth fund groups such as Baillie Gifford and AXA Framlington, and small-cap specialists like Unicorn and Marlborough performed particularly well over the past five years, helped by the strong rally in global equities and growth stocks.
Value funds and groups with a value bias such as M&G Investments and Aberdeen Asset Management tended to struggle in the table.
