Stock market turbulence that started in May forced top equity fund managers Newton, GLG Partners and Zesiger Capital Group to the bottom of global equities performance tables in the second quarter.

Data compiled for Financial News by Mercer Investment Consulting showed London-based Cedar Rock Capital, formed in 2002 by managers from Morgan Stanley Investment Management, was the top global equities manager in the quarter, with a return almost 4% ahead of the FTSE World index. It ranked second last in the first three months. US-based Zesiger, the top performer in the first quarter, fell to last in the second quarter, almost 7% short of the index. Nils Taube's £8.5bn (€12.4bn) Taube Hodson Stonex Partners produced the second best global equity return in the period. Taube, who started his career in fund management after the Second World War, is retiring at the end of the year. Allianz Global Investors' RCM global equity unconstrained fund was the third best performer, beating the FTSE World index by 3.6%. Andy Barber, head of European manager research at Mercer Investment Consulting said RCM's product had done well because it was not fully invested in the downturn, holding high levels of cash. Morgan Stanley Investment Management's global franchise fund, which was in the bottom quartile in the first three months of the year, was the fourth strongest in the second quarter. The fund, run by Hassan Elmasry, has a value bias and invests in household names, which were more resilient to the downturn. Goldman Sachs Asset Management was the only fund manager to have a global equity fund in the top and bottom five managers in the second quarter. Its global country neutral fund, which is run by the quantitative team, returned almost 3% more than the FTSE World index. Its global concentrated fund, run by fundamental managers, was 3.7% behind the index over the same period. For fixed income, Nomura Asset Management was the top manager in global government bonds, with a return of 4.7% in the second quarter against the index return of 3.2%. Fortis Investments was the worst, returning 1.2%. Crédit Agricole's global bonds fund was second last, having dropped down the performance table from fourth place in the first quarter. It is the best performer over the three years to the end of June. Paul Cavalier, senior investment consultant at Mercer, said: "They run an aggressive approach to global fixed income investing so, although intermittently in certain quarters they will produce negative returns, over the long term you would expect to see their performance in the upper quartile, which it is." Bridgewater Associates' global bond fund returned 3.8% in the second quarter and ranks in the top quartile over three years. The fund closed to new investors last year when it neared its capacity limits. Cavalier said: "They attracted lots of money and realised full potential in terms of capacity. Many other managers could learn from that." See next week's issue for full performance tables