Revealed: The 20 most consistent funds over three tough years

First State’s Martin Lau has beaten stars including Invesco Perpetual’s Neil Woodford and Neptune’s Robin Geffen to see his Greater China Growth fund ranked the most consistent performer over the three years to the end of 2011.

This is according to figures compiled by Morningstar for Investment Week’s Consistent 50 list, which ranks onshore vehicles in the UK by decile performance over three years. Funds are then sorted by their volatility and gain/loss profile.

During a turbulent period for global markets, Lau and co-managers Seck Yee Hou and Xian Quanqiang, running the £556m portfolio, have delivered the most consistent top decile performance.

The fund, which has made a total return of 71% in the last three years, was soft-closed last year, despite being just £600m in size.

Under Lau’s stewardship, the fund has been top quartile over most time periods, with the exception of the last three months of 2011 when it was second quartile.

Despite the well-known problems facing European equity markets, Jupiter’s Alexander Darwall has also outperformed sufficiently over most time periods to make the top 20.

His £1.4bn Jupiter European fund has returned 43.2% over the last three years, giving it one of the highest returns in the IMA European sector. Darwall achieved this with a lower volatility rating than many peers.

The top 20 is dominated by equity funds, with only a quarter of the most consistent managers over the last three years running bond funds.

Of the fixed income managers to make the grade, M&G’s Richard Woolnough – running the group’s behemoth £5.5bn Corporate and £4.2bn Strategic Corporate Bond funds– features twice, while funds from Threadneedle, Royal London and AXA also make the top 20.

Top 20 performers

Investment Week publishes the Consistent 50 list every week in our statistics section.