Decade Dominators: top ten ultimate long-term performers revealed

Fund: Marlborough Special Situations

Kicking off our top ten best performing managers over the last ten years is renowned UK equity manager Giles Hargreave.

The Citywire AAA-rated manager has been running the £496 million (€615 million) fund since 1998 and focuses on the UK’s small cap equity sector.

The UK-domiciled fund currently has industrials as its top sector allocation, accounting for 30% of its assets, followed by consumer services (18%) and tech (16.4%).

His current top holdings are tech group Anite and industrial firms RPC Group and Ashtead Group.

Note: All performance data is over ten years to the end of October 2012 and in euro currency terms. Only managers who have been continuously running their fund over the last ten years and outperformed their benchmark according to the Citywire database were included in this analysis.

Fund: DNB SMB

Norwegian manager Thomas Vogt has been with DNB since 2001 and began his career with Nordea Asset Management in 1996.

He has been running the Norway-domiciled fund since its launch in 2001 and has earned a place in our ranking for his stock selection skills in the country’s small and mid-cap sector.

The fund’s top sector allocation is towards oil and gas which accounts for a quarter of its assets. Technology is Vogt’s second biggest allocation and his top holdings are currently Clavis Pharma, BWG Homes and Opera Software.

Fund: JF India

The Citywire AA-rated Indian equity manager duo Rukhshad Shroff and Rajendra Nair are next in our list of top performing managers.

The Hong Kong-based managers have been running the $1.9 billion JF India Fund since 1995 and a Luxembourg-domiciled version of the fund was launched in 2005.

It invests predominantly in India and neighbouring countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The pair focus largely on financials which make up a third of the fund’s current assets. The tech sector is next with around 12% followed by materials at 11%.

Among the fund’s top ten holdings are HDFC Bank, Housing Development Finance Corporation and tech group Infosys.

Fund: Russian Prosperity

Alexander Branis is one of Russia’s best known investors and has been with Prosperity Capital Management since 1997.

He is currently the firm’s chief investment advisor and runs the $1.3 billion Russian Prosperity fund. The fund invests mainly in Russian large caps and Branis uses a predominantly value-driven stock selection approach.

The oil and gas sector accounts for around half of the fund’s assets and energy groups Gazprom, Bashneft and TNK-BP Holdings are among his top holdings.

Fund: First State Hong Kong Growth

Making the first of two appearances in our top manager ranking, the Citywire AAA-rated manager Martin Lau runs a number of First State funds all focusing on the Asian equity sector.

He has been running the $264 million Hong Kong Growth fund, which has a diversified portfolio of around 70 stocks, since April 2002.

Until the crisis his outperformance against his FTSE benchmark remained fairly constant but since the end of 2008 he has considerably outperformed the index.

His current top sector allocation is towards financials (41%), followed by utilities (13.5%) while his largest holdings are Hong Kong multi-national conglomerate Cheung Kong Group, Link Real Estate Investment Trust and property group Jardines.

Fund: ISI Latin America Equities

Denmark-based Anders Damgaard has been running his Latin American fund since its launch in February 1998 and currently invests just over half its assets (55%) in Brazil.

The emerging markets specialist’s next biggest country allocation is Mexico (30%) while his top sector allocation is towards the financial sector (28%).Consumer staples comes next (20%) and then materials (19%).

His top holdings as they currently stand are steel producer Vale Rio Doce Cia, brewers Fomento Economico Mexicano SAB de CV and the GPO Fin Del Norte bank.

Fund: ZZ1

The only bond manager to break into the top ten, Peter Pühringer is renowned for steering clear of the media limelight.

He regularly appears in our best performing long-term manager analyses and has been running his €541 million emerging market debt fund since its inception in 1996.

The veteran Austrian fund manager is an advocate of so-called ‘truffle’ markets, those which combine attractive coupons with reduced rates of interest and currency gain.

His bond picking process has remained closely under wraps since the fund was launched as has its holdings.

Fund: PYN Elite

Finnish manager Petri Deryng’s fund is the epitome of high conviction as it currently has only nine holdings.

The Finland-domiciled fund can invest across the globe but Deryng’s strategy aims to concentrate the fund’s investments in one country at a time.

At its launch back in 1999, Deryng began its operations with investments in Southeast Asia and, so far, has focused only on Thai equities.

His two top positions, which currently both make up around 19% each of his fund, are Thai property group Sansiri and Thai industrial group Ticon.

Fund: Skagen Kon-Tiki

Coming in second place and missing out on top spot by the narrowest of margins is renowned emerging market veteran Kristoffer Stensrud.

The Euro Stars AA-rated manager has been running his €5.9 billion emerging market fund since its inception in April 2002 and has since been joined by co-managers Knut Harald Nilsson – also Euro Stars AA-rated – Cathrine Gethner and Ross Porter.

The fund’s current top country exposure is towards South Korea (16.5%), followed by Brazil (15%) and Russia (7.5%).

The Norwegian manager appeared in Citywire’s Star Manager feature in October where he revealed how he has been staying at the top of his game over the last ten years.

Fund: First State China Growth

In first place in our top ten performing managers analysis over the last ten years is Citywire AAA-rated Martin Lau.

Making his second appearance in the ranking his China Growth equity fund beat off stiff competition from seasoned investors to take top spot.

As with his Hong Kong Growth fund, Lau has been managing his $4.2 billion China focused fund since April 2002.

His current top sector allocation is towards financials (16.7%), which is also his biggest underweight in the fund.

The next top sectors are utilities (15.5%) and consumer staples (12%) and his top holdings are currently China Oilfield Services, ENN Energy Holdings and Chinese oil group CNOOC.