Fund managers appear to have learned the lessons of delivering consistent returns amid the financial turmoil of recent years, according to a survey by UK firm Thames River Multi-Capital.

The firm based its findings on its TRMC Consistency Ratio, which tracks the proportion of funds that have performed consistently above average in each of the last three 12-month periods, in addition to those which are consistently top quartile over the same period.

Out of 12 main sectors researched, out of the 1,230 funds with three-year track records, 35 have been top quartile in each of the last three 12-month periods. This is a rise from 2.68 per cent in the second quarter of 2011 to 2.8 per cent.

“This is our fifteenth survey and, as the three years for the study this quarter now encompasses the majority of the ‘credit crunch’ era, managers appear to have dealt better with this volatile period than one would have expected in terms of regular above average returns at least,” Rob Burdett, co-head of Thames River Multi-Capital, said in a statement about the findings.

“Perhaps the bitter experience of trying to successfully navigate their way through choppy waters of persistent bad news and irregular markets has seen many fund managers find a way of improving performance amidst the ‘new normal’. This is no mean feat when you consider that the backdrop is in constant motion and this has quite frankly made life for fund managers, and investors, very difficult,” he said.

The most consistent sectors for top quartile returns were the Emerging Markets (a small sector where two Aberdeen funds delivered), UK Smaller Companies (three funds from Investec, Marlborough and Amati) and, surprisingly, given the political and economic issues in the region, Europe ex-UK sectors (five funds including Liontrust European Growth, BlackRock European Dynamic and Jupiter European).

Such data adds to the debate on whether fund managers can sustainably outperform a market over one or two years. Believers in what is called the Efficient Market Hypothesis argue that in large, liquid markets, such consistent "alpha" is difficult to obtain for all but a few small, lucky firms.

Thames River, a boutique firm created in 1998, was acquired by F&C Group, the UK-listed asset manager, in 2010.