(MONEY Magazine) – Fund manager Ken Heebner doesn't like being compared with former rival Peter Lynch, the phenom who retired from Fidelity Magellan at age 46 in 1990. ''I'm not really in Peter's league,'' says Heebner, 50. But like it or not, comparisons are inevitable now that his flagship growth fund, $293 million CGM Capital Development, has beaten out $17 billion Magellan as the group's pacesetter over the past 10 years. As of Oct. 1, Heebner's fund had returned 815%, vs. 769% for Magellan and just 300% for the average stock fund. In fact, no-load CGM Capital led all diversified funds over 10 years and two more recent time periods. It returned a sizzling 75% over nine months (vs. 22% for stock funds) and 99% over one year (vs. 30%). Heebner's two other funds at $3 billion Capital Growth Management in Boston are hot too. Both his $360 million CGM Mutual, a no-load balanced fund, and his $844 million, 6.5%-load New England Growth have trounced the average stock fund (see the chart at left). That's especially welcome news to potential investors. While CGM Capital is closed, its stablemates are open (800-345-4048). ''During the past 18 months,'' notes Heebner, ''many of my big holdings had explosive profit gains, despite the recession, and ended up on everybody's buy list.'' Examples: medical gear makers U.S. Surgical, with $835 million in annual sales, and $140 million SciMed Life Systems. They represented about 20% of the fund's assets last summer when he sold both stocks, tripling his money. ''I'm not hesitant to place big bets or take my profits,'' he adds. Heebner has been this hot before -- in the fall of 1987 when three of his funds, paced by CGM Capital, ranked first in their classes over three years and earned top honors in most other periods. Then the market crashed and -- wham! -- his funds fell harder and recovered slower than most. In the year to October 1988, they sank to the bottom 10% of their heaps with losses ranging from 14% to 25%, vs. 11% for stock funds overall. ''I was too bearish in 1988,'' he recalls. ''My funds were roughly 50% in cash and thus missed much of the market's 17% rebound that year.'' Today, Heebner is again anxious about the economy, but this time he's staying fully invested. He disagrees with those who think the recession has ended and expects it to drag on for another 12 months or so, pulling down both corporate profits and the Dow about 10% despite a continuing slide in interest rates. Under this scenario, he likes long-term bonds -- hence his balanced fund's 42% stake in 30-year Treasuries -- and growth stocks whose earnings can continue to accelerate. Heebner favors stocks priced below the earnings multiple of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index (lately 19, based on his profit projections for 1992). Ideal candidates are companies capable of profit surges large enough to propel prices 50% in a year or less. ''Though ambitious, I realize that goal on about 20% of my stocks,'' he says. (Of course, he loses on some of his big bets. In October, he dumped his 600,000 shares of Harley-Davidson for a 17% loss after the motorcycle maker reported slumping sales in its recreational- vehicle division.) Heebner is counting on these five stocks, all among his largest holdings, for next year: -- Collective Bancorp. New Jersey's fourth largest savings institution, with $2.5 billion in assets, is among the soundest in the U.S., says Heebner. Thus it's profiting big -- earnings grew 95% in fiscal '91 and could rise 58% in '92 -- from $554 million in new deposits bought on the cheap from the the federal Resolution Trust Corporation. -- Storage Technology. Never mind that the stock, recently $41, was worth $400 a decade ago. Or that the $1.1 billion Louisville firm, which emerged from bankruptcy in 1987, once specialized in tape and disk drives for slow-selling mainframe computers. Next year, says Heebner, half of its sales and all of its heady 54% growth will come from a monopoly -- a $400,000 automated tape retrieval machine that greatly reduces downtime for data bases. -- Syntex. Over the next two years, predicts Heebner, profits at this $1.8 billion drugmaker in Palo Alto will double on the strength of two potential blockbusters. Ticlid, an antistroke drug, is likely to receive regulatory approval by year-end, he says. It could generate 1993 sales of $300 million to $500 million, depending on the scope of applications permitted. And he also expects an early okay on a pill form of the painkiller Toradel, now limited to injections. ''The pill,'' he says, ''is destined to boost sales tenfold to $1 billion, perhaps by 1993.'' -- Countrywide Credit. This $135 million Pasadena company has long prospered by buying mortgages from banks and S&Ls and selling them at a markup to institutional investors. What's changed, says Heebner, is that ailing Citibank, the field's dominant player, all but pulled out this past summer. Over a recent six-month span, Countrywide's revenues shot up 52% on a 92% rise in total loans. Business figures to pick up even more now that mortgage rates have plunged. ''Profits are going through the roof,'' exclaims Heebner, who forecasts gains of 58% this fiscal year and 42% next. -- Philip Morris. Heebner understands why many investors shun the world's top cigarette maker, and No. 2 food company, with $51 billion in sales. Its main product -- source of 68% of the New York City firm's profits -- is unhealthy, addictive and flat in terms of U.S. unit sales. But its food business remains strong. And overseas, he says, smokers' insatiable craving for Marlboros and other Philip Morris brands ensures at least 20% overall annual profit growth that's priced at a 35% discount to the S&P 500's earnings multiple.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE CREDIT: NO CREDIT CAPTION: FIVE THAT COULD THRIVE IN '92 Heebner has big bets on these high-growth firms. Collec tive trades over the counter; the rest on the New York Stock Exchange. All are ranked here according to his pro jected percentage gains in share prices by year-end 1992.