Data compiled by wealth manager Tilney showed the Invesco funds in question held £11bn of client capital combined.
A “dog” fund is defined as one which has underperformed its sector for each of the past three years, with the total level of underperformance being 5 per cent below the index or worse.
Invesco had six such funds on the list, more than any other fund house.
The underperformers include the Invesco Income, High Income and Strategic Income funds, all UK mandates and all run by the firm’s head of UK equities Mark Barnett.
Invesco’s Income and Growth fund, which is also a UK equities mandate, also made the list. This fund is run by Ciaran Mallon.
Jason Hollands, head of communications at Tilney said the underperformance of the funds run by Mr Barnett reflected the fact that his value style of investing had been out of favour with the market in recent years.
But a representative of Invesco defended the performance of its UK equity fund range.
They said: “UK equity markets have experienced continued volatility over the last 12 months as a result of domestic political uncertainty and other geopolitical and global economic factors.
"The UK stock market continues to be undervalued in our view with many UK domiciled companies trading at very low valuations relative to their global peers.
"The market’s preference for predictability of revenues and earnings has produced a divergence in valuations that we believe is extreme. Moreover we believe that a reversion to traditional valuation metrics will occur."
They added: "Whilst recent performance has been challenging, our investment process remains robust and we continue to believe in the long term value of the UK equity market."
The company said it had "seen evidence" that markets were beginning to value UK companies on the basis of their long term fundamentals and there had been increased mergers and acquisitions activity.
"We expect volatility to continue whilst the outcome of Brexit negotiations is unclear. We retain full confidence in the positioning of our UK equity portfolios," it stated.
There were twenty UK equity funds on the list, down from 59 in the previous edition.
Embattled fund manager Neil Woodford had two of those, including the now suspended Woodford Equity Income fund, which was the absolute worst performer in the sector, returning £80 for every £100 invested over the past three years.
The St James's Place UK High Income fund, also managed by Mr Woodford, though he has been fired as manager of it since, also made the list.
A representative of Woodford Investment Management said: "Neil will continue to focus the fund’s portfolio towards the few areas of the market which continue to offer valuation appeal and to the economic regions that appear to have enough internal momentum to withstand the growing global headwinds.
"Admittedly, this strategy has not delivered the returns we had anticipated over the past couple of years but identifying situations where price and value diverge has been at the centre of Neil’s disciplined investment approach for more than thirty years.
"This investment strategy continues to determine a portfolio that he believes is appropriate for the economic and market environment that confronts us.”
Meanwhile, the £42m Invesco European Opportunities fund was the worst performing European equity fund of the past three years, underperforming its benchmark by 22 per cent.
Invesco’s representative said: “In the context of a weakening macro environment and falling bond yields, investors are increasingly turning to low volatility stocks whose attributes are bond-like.
"The fund has focused on the opportunities that have arisen elsewhere where valuations are more attractive and recognising the risk of a bubble forming.
"Whilst diverging away from the consensus has been painful, we remain confident that substantial gains await the patient investor who is willing to look away from bond proxies, as well as further down the market-cap scale.”
Another fund on the list was the £1.8bn Janus Henderson European Selected Opportunities fund, which has lost 6 per cent over the past three years relative to the index.
A representative of the company said: "All of our funds are actively managed with a long-term investment focus.
"We continue to seek attractive or undervalued investment opportunities to deliver above-benchmark returns for our clients over a five-year period or more."
The £272m Invesco Japan fund was one of only three serial underperformers in that market identified by Tilney.
The Invesco Japan fund has returned 15 per cent over the past three years, compared with a return of 25 per cent for the sector.
Mr Hollands noted that no Japanese fund had made the list in previous years.
He said: “Although it was previously dismissed by many investors due to its ageing and shrinking population, today the investment case for Japan looks more positive. The country continues to improve its economy with Prime Minister Shinzō Abe’s ‘three arrows’– monetary stimulus to boost inflation and wages, fiscal stimulus and structural changes to improve corporate governance and shareholder returns.”
Invesco stated: "The Invesco Japan Fund is managed as a high conviction active fund and the investment process is based on valuation criteria which are agnostic of earnings growth."
It added: "We believe that markets have been distorted by a combination of momentum styles of investment and very low interest rates, which has driven faster growing companies to higher premiums than historically, and more modestly growing companies to bigger discounts.
"We do not see the justification for this in fundamental terms in the long run and believe it will be corrected at some point.
"We continue to believe in the long term merits of value-based investing, which has a very strong long term track record in the Japanese market."
david.thorpe@ft.com
