Consistency, rather than occasional outperformance, is what many long‑term investors prize – yet only a handful of global funds have delivered it over the past decade.
Trustnet compared the discrete annual returns between 2016 and 2025 of actively managed funds in the IA Global and IA Global Equity Income sectors against the most common benchmark in both peer groups: MSCI World.
In the IA Global sector, six funds beat the index in at least seven of the 10 years.
Source: FE Analytics. Figures highlighted in red represent years in which a fund underperformed MSCI World.
Over the full 10-year period, all six funds in the table were in the first quartile for returns, beating the IA Global sector average of 175.2% and MSCI World’s return of 245.5%.
Of the six funds, GMO Quality Investment – which outperformed the MSCI World in eight years – was top of the table, gaining 352.6%. This is the best 10-year return of all actively managed funds in the sector.
It is also over 70 percentage points better than the next best in the table, with WS Purisima Global Total Return PCG gaining 281.3% over the 10 years. Jupiter Merian Global Equity rounded out the top three in the table, up 279.6%.
GMO Quality Investment is an $8.6bn strategy co-managed by Tom Hancock, Ty Cobb and Anthony Hene of Waystone Management Company. The trio has worked together since the formation of the firm’s focused equity team in 2015, which applies a disciplined approach to identifying high-quality companies trading at attractive valuations.
The fund typically holds 40-50 stocks, with a philosophy of buying companies whose fundamentals are temporarily underappreciated due to short-term market concerns. Assets have grown rapidly from just over $1bn in 2023 to more than $8bn in 2026.
The portfolio includes several mega-cap names such as Microsoft, Alphabet and Apple, alongside more defensive holdings including Johnson & Johnson and Thermo Fisher.
Titan Square Mile analysts noted that the managers have the flexibility to tilt between quality growth, core quality and quality value, depending on market conditions.
“As a result, the portfolio typically excels in risk-off environments, where the market values company fundamentals over sentiment or optimism,” they said. Conversely, it may lag in periods driven by leverage or speculative behaviour.
Last year, GMO Quality Investments was identified as one of fewer than 3% of equity strategies to deliver top-quartile returns in both halves of the decade. It is also the only IA Global fund to beat the MSCI ACWI index in every calendar year from 2015 to 2025.
WS Purisima Global Total Return PCG beat the MSCI World index in seven years. It was launched in 2002 and targets capital and income growth.
The strategy’s 1.51% ongoing charges figure (OCF) makes it one of the more expensive funds in the peer group but it has nonetheless attracted significant investor interest.
In 2025 alone, it took in £1.1bn in net new money – the only active global equity fund to gather more than £1bn that year – with performance adding a further £1.7bn.
Rounding out the top three, Jupiter Merian Global Equity is a $706m strategy co-managed by Amadeo Alentorn, Yuangao Liu, Matus Mrazik, Sean Storey, James Murray and Tarun Inani.
The portfolio uses a proprietary model that evaluates return expectations at the index stock level. It aims to outperform the MSCI World over rolling three-year periods using its systematic, multi-factor quantitative process.
RSMR analysts said the strategy’s process is “more regimented” than typical active funds in the peer group.
It beat the index in seven of the past 10 years, although its stablemate Jupiter Merian World Equity – which is managed by the same team – proved more consistent, beating the index in eight years.
However, some passive funds in the sector were the most consistent. Two managed to beat the MSCI World in all 10 years: HSBC MSCI World UCITS ETF and L&G Global 100 Index Trust.
Such outperformance from exchange-traded funds (ETF) should be interpreted carefully, as passive funds are designed to replicate their chosen index as closely as possible, meaning deviations in returns reflect things such as index construction, short-selling or simply tracking a different index.
IA Global Equity Income
Turning to the IA Global Equity Income sector, the picture was more challenging. No fund beat the MSCI World index in seven or more years and only the two active strategies in the table below outperformed the index in at least five years.
The market has been dominated by technology stocks, which typically either do not pay a dividend or have very low yields, making it difficult for these funds to own index weightings to these top performers.
Source: FE Analytics. Figures highlighted in red represent years in which a fund underperformed MSCI World.
Jupiter Merian Global Equity Income (IRL) delivered a 241.8% return over the assessed decade – the fourth-best return in the IA Global Equity Income sector.
Breaking down the decade year by year, the fund posted first-quartile returns in five of those years, although it fell into the fourth quartile in 2022 and 2018 – both difficult years for equity markets – when it lost 7.3% and 8.5% respectively.
It was highlighted in Trustnet research last year as a global equity income fund delivering top-quartile returns over one, three, five and 10 years.
The $47.5m strategy is co-managed by the same Jupiter management team already mentioned.
Meanwhile, the £253.4m Fidelity Responsible Global Equity Income fund, managed by Aditya Shivram, delivered the strongest 10-year return in the sector, gaining 256.8%.
When assessing its discrete annual returns, it also posted a first-quartile return in five years and notably never fell into the fourth quartile. The fund’s weakest years were 2025, 2022 and 2016, when it dipped into the third quartile.
The Fidelity strategy has a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) themes, investing at least 80% of assets in companies with high ESG ratings or improving sustainability characteristics.