By Robert Adungo

According to a report in the Financial Times, fund managers who perform well have luck to thank for a large part of their success rather than just their skills.

Fund managers do need to be skilful at what they do in order to achieve any sort of success, notes the newspaper, but without market fundamentals including growth and momentum they stand little chance of making big returns.

The FT argues that success "is really all about momentum" and timing - a good example being Fidelity's UK Special Situation Fund's outstanding performance since its 1979 launch, which coincided with the great bull market of 1980 to 2000.

This was a period when the market was on an upward trajectory and a manager picking really cheap stocks, for example, could have easily seen their value soar. To put things into perspective, the FTSE All-share has increased by 6.9% over the past five years during which Fidelity has returned just 0.9%.

And this may be the reason why very few managers stay at the top. Indeed, just 1.3% of the 2,000-strong UK-based funds can boast making top quartile in each of the past three years, notes the newspaper.

Top quartile refers to being in the top 25% - increase this figure to 50% and the percentage increases to a mere 8.9%, meaning more than 90% of UK funds cannot do better than an index for three consecutive years.

Last year Jorma Korhonen, who took over the £1.6 billion Fidelity Special Situations fund from veteran Anthony Bolton in 2006, left his post after failing to make money for six years.