League leader maintains his place as star soars further

VINAY Agarwal, manager of the Stewart Investor Indian Subcontinent fund, has held on to top spot in the Scottish fund manager league table and climbed to a heady 13th place in the rankings of more than 4,000 UK and European managers.

Mr Agarwal heads the field for the second month in a row, based on the three-year performance to the end of January.

He only became eligible for the Citywire rankings when his fund was newly categorised as a UK entity in December.

The Herald’s table ranks managers in houses with a significant Scottish presence. First State Investments rebranded its Scottish arm as Stewart Investors, in a little-noticed move, last year.

Mr Agarwal joined First State as a portfolio manager in 2011. The Indian sub-continent fund is down 10.9 per cent over one year in the choppy Indian market, according to Citywire, but the average equity fund in the sector is down 15.7 per cent.

Holding on to second place in the table is Ben Russon, who co-manages four UK equity and equity income funds at Franklin Templeton.

He improves his overall position from 34 to 27, and is one of only 11 AAA-rated managers in the table, down from 15 in both the previous two periods.

Mr Russon is followed by his colleague on the same funds, Colin Morton, who rises from 85 to 64 and climbs from fifth to third in the Scottish league.

Two other Franklin Templeton managers on the team also make the top ten, Richard Bullas, ranked at 166 (down from 154), who works on three funds including mid-cap and smaller companies, and Mark Hall at 317 (up from 443), who is involved in six funds.

Sashi Reddy, manager at the Stewart Investor Asia Pacific Sustainability

and Indian Subcontinent funds, claims fourth place, his ranking rising from 157 to 104.

Audrey Ryan at Kames Capital slips from 58 to 161 overall but is again in the top five. Ms Ryan manages the UK Opportunities, Ethical Equity and Ethical Cautious Managed funds at Kames.

Her colleagues Iain Wells and Douglas Scott, co-managers of the Kames UK Equity Income fund, are placed eighth and ninth on similar rankings to the previous month. Thomas Moore, of Standard Life Investments, who topped the table for five successive months in the second half of 2015, slips from 51 to 198.

Mr Moore, manager of the UK Equity Income Unconstrained fund, still ranks seventh in the Scottish table. The last AAA-rated manager is Margaret Lawson, manager of the SVM UK growth fund, who slips from 266 to 349 and is just outside the top 10, while co-manager Colin McLean, who also runs two funds for Scottish Friendly, is one place behind.