A LEADING City fund manager has admitted making sizeable investments in risky companies after consulting with Robert Bonnier, the controversial stock-market trader.

Shares in five companies linked to Bonnier and a small group of other investors fell sharply last week. It followed speculation that Bonnier had been forced to close derivative positions in the stocks to repay debts.

Among the fund managers nursing heavy losses is Adrian Paterson. He manages the UK Growth Fund for Artemis, which is part owned by ABN Amro, the Dutch bank.

Paterson had invested alongside Bonnier in all five stocks that fell as much as 30% — Regus, Regal Petroleum, Sci Entertainment, Innovation Group and Evolution.

Over the past week the value of the fund’s holdings in the five firms — four of which rank in the largest 10 investments by the £490m fund — has fallen by more than £13m.

The UK Growth Fund aims to “provide long-term capital growth”, according to marketing literature.

A spokesman for Artemis confirmed that Paterson had invested in two of the stocks — Sci Entertainment and Evolution — after Bonnier drew his attention to the companies.

Bonnier, who takes large positions in firms using investments called CFDs, is known to have a following in the City that includes traders, a number of wealthy individuals and a handful of fund managers.

Bonnier is the former chief executive of Scoot.com and at the height of the dotcom boom his stake in the company was worth more than £150m. But in 2001 this stake was seized to repay a debt.

The entrepreneur has a long history of controversial share dealings dating back to 1995 when he was working in the corporate-finance department at Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC). At that time, Bonnier breached internal compliance rules by buying shares in the bank’s clients and in companies that were being eyed up for takeover by SBC.

Late last year he was fined £290,000 when the Financial Services Authority found him guilty of market abuse after investigating his share dealings in Regus.

A spokesman for Artemis said that its UK Growth Fund had invested in hundreds of companies and insisted that these were appropriate investments.

“These companies are profitable and growing. Despite the falls of the past few days they have made our investors a considerable amount of money,” said the spokesman.

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