Gosling's Grouse: Is Bolton really a 'fallen star'?

GOSLING'S GROUSE

Clearly fund managers are the new rock and roll. There can be no other explanation than this for the coverage Fidelity's Anthony Bolton received last week.

The announcement he is to step down from running the China Special Situations investment trust next year was greeted with words like ‘chastened’ by the FT, or ‘fallen star’ by others. But to what extent is a fund manager who has found investing in China more difficult than some had imagined a fallen star? When Bolton hands over the reins of the trust next spring it will effectively mark the end of 40 years as a fund manager – he cut his teeth at the now defunct Schlesinger back in the early 1970s. And just as he did not become an overnight success then, he has not become an overnight ...