Baillie Gifford senior partner Plowden hits back at active management critics

Letter published in the FT

Baillie Gifford's Charles Plowden, joint senior partner and manager of the £1bn Monks investment trust, has criticised the "oversimplification" and "flawed analysis" used in coverage of the active versus passive management debate.

In a high-profile intervention, Plowden (pictured) said in a letter to the Financial Times that he welcomes the debate because it "shines a light on best practice in active management" but he is concerned by the "over-simplification of the topic and its consequences". He said: "The basic argument of some academic studies, industry commentators and many journalists is that there is little chance of picking an active manager that will beat passively invested funds, after fees, over the long term. When an active manager is successful, most simply attribute this to luck. "So the argument ...