Anthony Bolton, the Fidelity fund manager who last week relinquished half of his £6bn (€8.8bn) special situations fund, has placed large bets on big-name UK companies, including gas explorer BG Group, broadcaster ITV and British Land. Bolton told Financial News he had started switching the weighting of his investments away from small and mid-cap stocks back towards FTSE 100 index companies 18 months ago.

Some 50% of his portfolio is weighted towards blue-chip stocks, which is its highest proportion. Bolton, who has over 3.5% of his portfolio invested in BG Group, said: "I feel BG has unique assets and, because of the size of the company, it could be exposed to corporate activity."