Glasgow fund manager Jim Fisher's £180m Saracen Growth Fund escaped relatively unscathed from the UK stock market's first-half tumble because it steered clear of housebuilders and banks, it emerged yesterday.

Fisher told The Herald that, adding back dividends, Saracen Growth recorded a negative total return of 6.7%. The negative total return on the UK All-Share Index was 11.2%.

The fund manager noted that this 4.5-percentage-point difference in total return left Saracen Growth 5.1% better than the All-Share over the six months to June 30 - a significant outperformance.

Fisher, majority owner of the Saracen Fund Managers company which runs Saracen Growth, highlighted his fund's relatively small exposure to retail stocks as another factor which helped it beat the All-Share.

He also pointed to its "quite heavy" positions in the oil and gas and mining sectors, which have been performing strongly.

However, Fisher highlighted Saracen Growth's recent purchases of shares in Marks & Spencer, declaring: "We have just put a toe in the water."

Shares in the blue-chip retailer have plunged from levels above 700p last year. They closed at 234p last night, having gone as low as 210.25p recently.

Fisher conceded Saracen had bought some of the shares in Marks & Spencer at higher levels than those prevailing now, with another tranche bought close to the current price at around 230p.

He said he had left "plenty of room to buy more Marks".

Fisher added: "Where is the share price going short term? I haven't got a clue...On a three to five-year view, I don't think we will go far wrong buying Marks at these levels."

He noted that he had, when Marks & Spencer shares tumbled earlier this decade, had a few "bites" at buying the stock on the way down, in what proved to be shrewd investments.

Fisher acknowledged trading conditions were tough for retailers and cited Marks & Spencer's current "Lunch on Us" offer as a sign of this.

He said: "Of course it is tough out there. You look at the deals they are doing - if you buy three sarnies and get it (a card) stamped, you get the fourth one free."

However, Fisher added: "M&S has (annual) sales of £9bn and its market cap is (about) £3.5bn. You are buying it at (about) a third of sales."

Referring to Saracen Growth's outperformance of the All-Share in the six months to June 30, Fisher said: "I think the key things were we had no banks. We had no housebuilders and we had little exposure to retail...Although we are keeping an eye on them, I think it is just too early to jump into the banks or the housebuilders."

He added: "It is quite nice to get quite well ahead of the index in the first half but it would have been nicer if we could have made a bit of money, but (that is) quite difficult when the market is off 11 or 12%."

Fisher also cited Glasgow-based engineering company Weir Group as a good performer for Saracen: "We have made some money on the likes of Weir Group, which is quite nice (because it is) a Scottish company."

He also highlighted strong contributions from high-tech instrument developer Oxford Instruments and oilfield engineering services company Plexus Holdings.

Fisher noted mobile phone giant Vodafone had also been a solid performer for Saracen in recent weeks.

Asked where stock markets might go from here, Fisher replied: "Who knows? I think, in the short term, it is driven by sentiment."

However, he viewed the relatively indiscriminate sell-off as a good opportunity for stock-pickers such as himself to buy shares in good companies at cheaper prices.