A fund manager is licensed to invest other people's money. The same firms run the unit trusts you can buy, the pension schemes your employer pays into, and segregated portfolios for institutions and wealthy individuals.

The manager does not hold your money. The scheme's assets sit with a separate custodian bank, and that separation is the single most important structural protection in the whole arrangement.

For almost everyone, you do not hire a fund manager — you buy one of their funds, which is the collective investment scheme licence rather than this one. A direct, segregated mandate exists but starts at a level most savers will not meet.

What this register is for is checking: if a fund is being sold to you, the manager's name should be on it.

The manager's return is whatever its funds returned, so the comparison belongs on the funds, not the firm. What differs between managers at the firm level is the fee, and a fee is certain where a return is not.