There are 14 funds from the IA UK All Companies sector that have made top-quartile returns over the past one-, three-, five- and 10-year periods, according to research by FE Trustnet. 
Having previously considered the IA Global sector, we decided to look a little bit closer to home to find the top-performing funds in the largest UK equity sector.
There are some well-known names among the top performers, as the below table shows.
Source: FE Analytics
The largest – and one of the best-known – of the top-quartile funds is the £6.8bn LF Lindsell Train UK Equity fund managed by FE Alpha Manager Nick Train, which aims to deliver returns through quality-growth investment.
Whilst it is an actively-managed fund, manager Train takes an almost passive approach with it.
Noting this, FE Invest analysts, who feature the LF Lindsell Train UK Equity fund on their Approved List, said: “Although this is an active fund, Train very rarely changes the portfolio. This is simply because he applies a very strict investment approach, so once a stock meets his criteria, should the investment case remain then he has no reason to sell it.
“Achieving this impressive track-record with the low portfolio turnover highlights his stockpicking skills.”
Over the past decade, the LF Lindsell Train UK Equity fund has made a total return of 416.44 per cent – the third-best over this time period. It has an ongoing charges figure (OCF) of 0.68 per cent.
The best performer over 10 years goes to another well-known fund the five FE Crown-rated Liontrust Special Situations fund, which is up by 427.81 per cent compared with a return of just 171.04 per cent for the average peer.
Liontrust Special Situations is managed by two FE Alpha Managers – Anthony Cross and Julian Fosh – who have managed the fund together since 2008.
The defensive, bottom-up fund follows Liontrust’s proprietary ‘Economic Advantage’ process, which targets companies with intangible assets that result in barriers to entry and gives them a competitive advantage. Such companies are able to defy competition and sustain higher than average levels of profitability for longer than expected.
The three intangible assets that are hardest to replicate, according to the managers, are intellectual property, strong distribution channels and significant recurring business.
Performance of fund vs sector over 10yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Favoured stocks include holdings such as drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, alcoholic drinks manufacturer Diageo and consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser. The fund has an OCF of 0.87 per cent.
The next fund that caught our attention for being the top performer over not just one time frame but two is MFM Bowland.
The £17.5m MFM Bowland fund has made total returns of 67.09 per cent over three years and an impressive 101.69 per cent return over the five years.
The fund has been managed by Hargreave Hale’s Leon Shuall since March 2014 and has enjoyed a strong run since.
In the three years before Shuall took over, for example, MFM Bowland was in the peer group’s bottom decile.
In the latest report, Shuall noted: “Since we took over management of the fund four years ago, the performance has become a little more consistent versus historic trends.
“We place an emphasis on the relative qualities of the companies we invest in and this has broadly helped with performance.
“The current asset allocation continues to remain relatively light in the more cyclically sensitive sectors and we continue to face relatively expensive valuations for the more dependable companies.”
MFM Bowland has an OCF of 0.84 per cent.
The final fund from our research worth mentioning is the £423m Aviva Inv UK Equity MoM 1 fund, which has performed the best over the past 12 months. (It was also the second-best performer over 10 years with a return of 417.79 per cent).
Making 17.03 per cent returns the five FE Crown-rated Aviva fund is managed on a third-party basis by Lindsell Train, whose LF Lindsell Train UK Equity fund is the third-best performer over one year with a gain of 15.36 per cent. It has an OCF of 1.02 per cent.
Another stand-out performer over the past year, with the second-best performance over one year is the Baillie Gifford UK Equity Alpha fund, which returned 16.63 per cent.
The four FE Crown-rated, £373.9m fund has been managed by Gerard Callahan since 2010 and – like many of the other top-performing funds – invests in a concentrated portfolio of companies.
Callahan takes a long-term, low turnover approach for Baillie Gifford UK Equity Alpha, investing in high quality growth companies capable of growing their profits and cashflows faster than the market average.
Performance of fund vs sector over 1yr
Source: FE Analytics
The Baillie Gifford UK Equity Alpha fund has an OCF of 0.57 per cent.