Former Schroder UK Growth manager to run funds of funds at Wise

Mr Matthews had worked at Schroders for five years and ran Schroder UK Alpha Plus Fund (GB00B5L33N61) between October 2013 and March this year, until its management was handed over to Bill Casey and Nicholas Kissack. During Mr Matthews' tenure it made a return of 25.5 per cent, against 32.5 per cent for the FTSE All-Share index and the Investment Association (IA) UK All Companies sector average of 35.4 per cent.

He ran Schroder UK Growth between October 2014 and the end of June this year, over which time it returned 23.2 per cent, against 21.5 per cent for the FTSE All-Share and the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) UK All Companies sector average of 31.5 per cent.

But Mr Ropers, chief executive officer of Wise Funds, said Mr Matthews' recent under performance was probably because value style investing is out of favour. "Managers go through cycles and can have a style that doesn't work at certain times," he said. "We think Philip is a great manager and [although his performance at Schroders has not been as good] that doesn't mean all of a sudden he's gone from being an excellent to a poor fund manager."

Mr Ropers added that Mr Matthews skill as a value style investor is fitting because TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth and TB Wise Multi-Asset Income take a value-driven approach.

Both these funds are in the top quartile of the IA Flexible sector in terms of performance over three and five years. TB Wise Multi-Asset Growth aims for long-term capital growth ahead of inflation and the BATS UK All Companies Index, by investing in open-ended funds and investment trusts. It has assets worth £57.6m.

TB Wise Multi-Asset Income invests in income-producing assets including shares, fixed interest and commercial property, including via funds and investment trusts. It has assets worth £115.4m.

Mr Matthews has not previously run a fund of funds, but David Liddell, chief executive of online investment service IpsoFacto Investor, said: "You can't do trust and fund investing unless you have a pretty good knowledge of the underlying stocks and experience in the market, so having a good knowledge of investing directly is a big plus. And although five years is a long time to underperform it has been an unusual period in markets, and an unusually long period during which value investing has been out of favour. I don't think a fund group would take him on unless they thought he could contribute something over the long term."

Mr Matthews began his investment career in 1999 at Jupiter Asset Management, where between 2001 and 2013 he managed Jupiter Growth & Income Fund (GB00B6QQDN77). Between 2011 and the end of 2012 he was also deputy manager of Jupiter Income Trust (GB00BQXWPW10).

Schroder UK Growth Fund has recently been renamed Baillie Gifford UK Growth Fund. It is now run by Iain McCombie who is also co-manager of Baillie Gifford Managed Fund (GB0006010168) and Milena Mileva, who joined Baillie Gifford in 2009 and has been an investment manager in its UK equity team since 2012.

"It will be interesting to see whether the trust's board's decision to move from a value approach to an out-and-out growth investor like Baillie Gifford is good timing," said Jason Hollands, managing director at Tilney Group. "I think we'll see mean reversion. If you look at value versus growth style over 30 years, value has the edge."