Citywire has compiled a list of the world’s best equity fund managers, and insight on the groups that employ them.

The equities elite is a 421-strong list drawn from Citywire’s unique fund manager data. By taking a deep dive Amplify will reveal who these managers are, how much they are relied upon by their groups and which asset management firms are best at housing elite equity talent.

For example, managers in the equities elite work for 227 different groups around the world. But 35 managers work for just three firms.

The group with more managers in the elite than any other is JP Morgan, with 18 managers. The New York-based giant is followed by fellow US firm Fidelity Investments and Germany’s Allianz Global Investors, both with nine managers apiece.

How we did it

To pinpoint skill, demonstrated consistently over time, Citywire performed a new quantitative analysis of the managers we track.

Citywire has tracked fund managers for 23 years, currently following 17,000 active managers in 84 countries.

Manager analysis is based on the calculation of our proprietary Manager Ratio (MR) – based on the information ratio for each fund – aggregated across the funds each manager runs. This is attributed to the manager.

All managers with a positive MR based on the last three years of performance are attributed a Citywire fund manager rating. The top 10% of this pool are given AAA, the next 20% AA, the next 30% A and the final 40% get a + rating.

To create this new list, Citywire applied some extra criteria:

• Managers must have a three-year track record in managing one or more funds in any of the equity sectors Citywire covers.
• Managers must have a positive MR in at least nine of the past 12 month-to-month rolling three-year periods.
• Managers must have a positive MR in the three most recent rolling three-year periods.
• The positive MR must be in the top 30% of all positive MRs in each period.

Equities elite: Our findings

• Of the 8,984 equity fund managers we track, only 421 met the selection criteria.
• Between them, the elite manage 553 funds (we track more than 10,000).
• We track managers at more than 1,500 asset management groups across the globe – 227 had a manager or managers that qualified for the elite.

Amplify will reveal more facts and figures about the elite 421 over the coming weeks. Keep an eye on your inbox for the newsletter – or if you’re not signed up yet, click here.

Top three asset managers

JP Morgan Asset Management

• JP Morgan has the highest representation, with 18 of its fund managers in the elite 421
• JP Morgan’s elite manage 28 funds among themselves. The combined fund size of these funds is $93.3bn.

Fidelity Investments

• Nine of the 421 elite managers come from Fidelity Investments.
• Together, Fidelity’s elite manage 19 funds for the asset manager.
• Although the group has fewer elite managers than JP Morgan, their staggering combined fund value of $156bn places Fidelity first in terms of assets managed by elite members.

Allianz Global Investors

• Allianz Global Investors contributes eight managers to the elite 421.
• Allianz’s members of the elite manage 16 funds with a combined $24bn in assets.
• This smaller size means it comes fifth when we rank the data according to total fund value. Vanguard, on the other hand, ranks third in terms of fund size despite only contributing two elite managers. Vanguard is known as a passive fund giant, but these are active equity managers; this list reveals the importance of active management to the firm. Vanguard not only operates its own funds but hires other firms’ managers to run mandates for it as well.