Those charged with selling European equity funds in recent years have been rewarded with very thin gruel indeed, as high energy prices and starkly sluggish economic growth have hurt demand. 

But one European equity desk that can definitely afford an upgrade to the continental option is that of Liontrust.

Its European Dynamic fund (which last year rebranded from "European Growth") recently crashed through the £1bn AUM barrier, and indeed it is the top performer from 143 funds in the IA Europe ex UK sector over the five years to November 27, and second on a three year view. 

It has provided top quartile returns in 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019.

And some of the allocators we monitor have taken notice. In January it was owned by just one DFM but now it is owned by three.

It isn’t yet troubling the most popular active fund in this sector which is BlackRock European Dynamic which is held by 11 allocators.

The Liontrust fund is managed by the very long-serving duo of Samantha Gleave and James Inglis-Jones. 

Two of the biggest holdings may be helping performance here, anti-obesity drug maker Novo Nordisk is the largest exposure, while semi-conducter company ASML is also among the top 10 positions. 

The BlackRock fund is £3.8bn in size, and also has Novo Nordisk as its top holding and its largest exposure is to consumer goods companies. It is the third best performer in the sector over the past five years. 

So for now, it is clear exposure to big pharma and the consumer are what is separating the winners from the losers in the European equity universe.