Aegon is propelled to higher echelons

By Aimee Savage David Roberts believes flexibility to allocate between gilts and investment grade and high-yield credit has helped him produce top returns for the group over three years

Overweight positions in financials combined with exposure to UK gilts has propelled the Aegon Sterling Corporate Bond fund into the top decile of the UK Corporate Bond Sector over three years. Over the period to May 2006, the 77 funds in the peer group delivered an average cumulative return of 13.42%, bid to bid, according to figures from Standards & Poor's, while Aegon's proposition returned 23.84% and boasted the third highest annualised alpha of 2.81 against a mean of 0.25. Other strong performances came from the £554.2m Norwich Union Monthly Income Plus and New Star's Sterling Bond f...