Now who can match Burke's peerage?

Now who can match Burke's peerage?

However, last week's announcement that Burke is taking early retirement at 50 puts paid to that suggestion. While hardly as serious as Woodford's departure would be to the firm - he insists that is not imminent - Burke's departure is still a blow; Mark Dampier of financial adviser Hargreaves Lansdown describes his early exit as a 'big loss'.

His long-term performance is impressive: the high-profile, £291m UK Aggressive fund ranks 36th out of 355 UK All-Companies funds over the past five years, with a return of 94.8 per cent, while the £1bn UK Growth fund is in 128th place with a return of 70.8 per cent.

More recently, however, Burke's performance has faltered, largely because of his affection for banks. While Woodford is still negative on banks, Burke thought they were attractive. UK Aggressive had almost a third of its portfolio in financials, while the Growth fund has around a quarter.

He also backed some of the wrong banks, including Northern Rock (though he sold well before the price collapsed) and retained confidence in Bradford & Bingley long after others had sold out. Largely because of that exposure, over both one and three years, both funds.....continued below

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But all that, says Dampier, is only to be expected from an aggressive fund manager such as Burke; they take big bets and 'will get some things wrong'. The hope is that they will get enough right to produce good returns. The key question is whether Burke's successors will manage that tricky balancing act.

The two funds are getting different managers: UK Growth is to be run by Martin Walker, who currently manages the much smaller UK Opportunities fund (which will be merged into UK Growth) and the Invesco Children's fund. Both of Walker's funds have beaten Burke's UK Growth over one, three and five years and, while his recent performance has not been impressive, it has not suffered as badly as Burke's.

Stephen Anness, who is taking over the Aggressive fund, is harder to assess. He joined the firm six years ago as an analyst and has only been managing money since October 2004. His only retail fund is the pan-European equity fund that he runs with Katharina Hoyland, launched in October 2006. That has done all right, but two years is not long enough to judge a fund manager's skills.

It may be some comfort to investors that Woodford describes Anness as 'more than ready to take on this responsibility'. Darius McDermott of financial advisers Chelsea Financial Services, who met Anness in January, said he got a 'good impression' of his skills.

Anness's own comments on his approach are as vague as any fund manager's. 'The best way to manage risk on an absolute level is to complete thorough, fundamental analysis of the companies and sectors in which you're investing. And that feeds through to stock selection and the types of companies you want in your portfolio and how you construct that portfolio,' he says. 'There have been a number of stocks in a number of sectors that have de-rated, where they should prove to be essentially resilient.'