Liontrust Asset Management has boosted its economic advantage team with the appointment of Victoria Bates.

London-listed Liontrust Asset Management has hired former journalist Victoria Bates as the third fund manager on its "economic advantage" team.  

Bates will join the team's fund management duo, Anthony Cross and Julian Fosh, in June. She is currently deputy head of corporate broking at finnCap, where she has served both Cross and Fosh as clients. Before finnCap, she worked at City AM as a senior reporter and diary editor.

In her new role, Bates will work primarily alongside Cross on the research, analysis and selection of small-cap investments.

“We are finding a lot of potential investment opportunities across the small-cap universe and have been looking to recruit someone who can help us to analyse and monitor in depth a broader range of smaller companies,” said Cross. 

“We are delighted that Victoria is joining us to enable us to capitalise on all these opportunities through the application of the economic advantage investment process.”

Cross and Fosh manage the Liontrust Special Situations, UK Growth and UK Smaller Companies funds. Over the past five years, the UK Smaller Companies fund has delivered a cumulative performance of 128 per cent, compared to the 98 per cent returned by the average manager in the field.