The best and the worst

BROWN SHIPLEY'S Recovery Unit Trust has been reorganised under its new manager, Patrick Evershed, but is still waiting for a real upswing in the price of the types of share it buys.

Recovery funds ought to thrive in an environment of falling interest rates. But Mr Evershed said firmer signs were still needed that they were moving relentlessly downwards to bring real improvement in the performance of funds like his.

'What we need is a cut in German interest rates. I have no doubt the fund will perform. The momentum will come after the next cut in German rates,' he said.

The Brown Shipley fund's performance has been worse than others of its type because it had a large proportion of its portfolio in extremely small companies, whose shares proved virtually unmarketable after the 1987 stock market crash.

But the worst-performing trusts over five years are all small company and recovery specialists, and even big-name managers have come unstuck in this field.

While adventurous and experienced investors may now feel like taking a chance on the worst performers of the past five years, Barry Woolf, a director of Mercury Asset Management, said: 'We are still going for shares in companies with large capitalisations for the Blue Chip Fund.

'We have the power to go into smaller and medium-size companies' stocks, but have not done this yet.'

----------------------------------------------------------------- K Equity Growth Unit Trusts ----------------------------------------------------------------- The best pounds 1 AIB Grofund Equity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141.86 2 Gartmore British Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . .132.69 3 Mercury British Blue Chip. . . . . . . . . . . .127.67 4 Standard Life UK Equity Growth. . . . . . . . . 121.74 5 Capability Growth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120.31 The worst 95 S&P Special Situations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 47.98 96 Clerical Medical Special Situations. . . . . . .47.78 97 Arkwright Recovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.56 98 MGM Special Situations Growth. . . . . . . . . .31.72 99 Brown Shipley Recovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.83 Value of pounds 100 over five years to 28 September. Offer-to-bid, income reinvested. Source: Micropal -----------------------------------------------------------------