Two fund management groups, Pimco and Franklin Templeton, have commanded the top of the fixed-income performance charts this year, defying a bond-market sell-off in the past two months to preserve annual returns of as much as 15-20% in some portfolios.

Franklin Templeton's $12bn flagship, the Global Total Return fund, managed by Michael Hasenstab, was the top performer according to ThomsonReuters, whose Lipper unit ranked retail and institutional global-bonds funds for sale in the UK, by performance in sterling terms.