Baille Gifford has appointed a fund manager as one of its two new partners as three partners are set to retire from the firm this year.

Gary Robinson, fund manager for the Baillie Gifford US Growth Trust, the American Fund as well as the Global Stewardship Fund and Jan Oliver, director in its clients department will both become partners in May 2019.

The US Growth Trust is domiciled in the UK and is a closed-ended fund. Baillie Gifford also promoted Helen Xiong to co-manager of the US Growth Trust at the start of January 2019.

Ms Xiong moves in to her new role from deputy manager of the trust. She co-manages the trust alongside Mr Robinson, both have done so since its launch in March 2018. Both are also part of the US equities team.

The American fund has been outperforming its benchmark the S&P 500 Composite since the start of 2015. It has a fund size of £1.9 billion and an Ongoing Charge Figure (OCF) of 0.52 percent.

The Global Stewardship fund which has been beating its benchmark the MSCI ACWI since the later part of 2015. It has a fund size of £131 million and an OCF of 0.54 percent.

Ms Oliver has been with the company for 18 years, since January 2001.

The three partners who are retiring are Gerald Smith, Alison Warden and Jonathan Bates. Mr Smith has held senior leadership roles in equity and non-equity strategies, Ms Warden is a partner in finance and operations and Mr Bates is an investment manager in its ACWI alpha strategy.

They are set to retire on 30 April 2019.

Andrew Telfer, joint senior partner at Baillie Gifford said: “The continuing success of our firm is founded on outstanding long-term investment performance and excellent client service. Thanks to our stable partnership structure, we invest with conviction and always place client interests first.”

Baillie Gifford, is an Edinburgh-based asset manager with £196 billion in assets under management.