Farewell to the Harry Potter of stock-picking

Twenty-seven years ago, a shy 29-year-old engineering graduate from Cambridge University left his job as a trainee fund manager at an obscure South African investment company in London. In a move that some of his colleagues regarded as foolhardy, he had accepted an offer to join a little-known private American firm that had never sold an investment fund over here before, but thought that Britain under Margaret Thatcher — who had been elected just a few months earlier — might be a good place to try to break into the European investment market.

At the time few people had any idea that this seemingly intemperate career move would help change the face of the funds business in Britain and launch Anthony Bolton, the unassuming individual in question, into arguably the most successful professional stock-market investment career that this country has yet produced. Over those 27 years since starting his Special Situations fund for Fidelity, Bolton has become the Harry Potter of the investment world, conjuring up and sustaining a miraculous compound return of 20 per cent per annum for his fund.