PIPA 2012 was a night of well-earned celebration at the Sheraton Park Lane Hotel. Listed below are the investment award winners.
The Winners - Investment Categories
Active Asia-Pacific Equity
Winner: Newton Asset Management
This category caused a lot of debate between the judges, but the winner was chosen because of the stand out performance of its income funds in a year when such funds typically didn’t do very well.
Active European ex-UK equity
Winner: Allianz Global Investors
Commended: Threadneedle Investments
In a highly contested category the top two entrants both demonstrated good one year performances, but Allianz Global Investors edged it for the judges.
Active Global equity
Winner: Vontobel Asset Management
In another highly contested category the judges found it difficult to differentiate in terms of service and innovation, but there was one stand out winner in terms of performance.
Active UK equity
Winner: Majedie Asset Management
Majedie were praised for the number of research tools available for investors and their strong competitive edge.
Emerging market equity
Winner: Skagen Funds
Highly commended: Aberdeen Asset Management and Vontobel Asset Management
In this enormously popular category, the judges took the rare step of highly commending two firms with strong track records. But the winner just edged them with a well-crafted entry, and a 10-year outperformance record.
Diversified Growth Funds
Winner: Baring Asset Management
Commended: Ruffer
After an extremely busy year in the DGF field it was unsurprising to see so many entries for this category. It was an extremely close call between the top two entrants, which could only be separated by looking at their performances over one and three years.
High-Yield Bonds
Winner: Royal London Asset Management
Strong numbers were entered by a number of entrants this year, but the strongest of all was for Royal London Asset Management.
Liability Driven Investment (LDI)
Winner: F&C Investments
Commended: BlackRock
High marks were scored across this category for examples of client service, though F&C stood out for “looking after the little guys”.
Money Market Funds
Winner: Legal & General Investment Management
The judges praised LGIM for their respectable performance, preserving capital and thoughtfully tailoring their offerings to their pension fund client base.
Overseas Fixed Income
Winner: BlackRock
Highly Commended: Aviva Investors
There wasn’t much to separate the top three performers in this category. Aviva Investors was highly commended for its customer service and overall good presentation, but the winner ???
UK Fixed Income
Winner: M&G
Highly Commended: Insight Investment
Insight Investment was praised by the judges for its strong performance and for retaining a high percentage of its clients. But M&G stood out for its increased innovation over the past 12 months.
UK Property
Winner: Legal & General Investment Management
Highly Commended: M&G
M&G were praised for a strong service ethic and for its Secured Property Income Fund, but LGIM was chosen for its weighted average outperformance across all their property funds, and for having the strongest answers in the innovation and service criteria.
Overseas property
Winner: LaSalle Investment Management
Overseas property has experienced extreme periods of volatility in recent years, inspiring some fund houses to close their funds, keeping investors money within.
LaSallle Investment Management however, shunned that practice, and maintained its open position throughout. It also impressed for its generally greater levels of transparency and sustainability.
Quantitative investment
Winner: Barclays Capital Fund Solutions
Commended: Lombard Odier Investment Managers
Lombard Odier Investment Management impressed for its process of looking at hedge funds and their core drivers to determine their weightings on a monthly basis and for outperforming the investable hedge fund arena.
But Barclays Capital Fund Solutions was the winner for exceeding the benchmark and an impressive alpha variance model, which looked at a whopping 6,000 risk indicators across 70 asset classes.
Social Responsible and Environment Investment
Winner: Impax Asset Management
The judges all agreed that in some cases, bigger is better and Impax impressed for the scale of its operations.
Infrastructure
Winner: AMP Capital
AMP Capital shone through with impressive returns for the past one and three years, and its unrivalled experience.
Emerging Market Debt
Winner: Ashmore Investment Management
Highly commended: BlueBay Asset Management
After lengthy analysis of the entries, the judges agreed to award a highly commended to BlueBay Asset Management for its strong performance in a competitive field. But Ashmore was congratulated for its unparalleled transparency, experience and performance.
Currency
Winner: Macrocurrency Group
Macrocurrency Group blew away the competition in this category by offering outperformance since inception and a pioneering alpha/beta strategy approach, introduced last September.
Pensions Week would like to thank everyone who entered the awards this year and the judges for their hard work. This year's investment judges were:
Nigel Aston (DCisions), Ian Cormican (Sackers), Phil Irvine (PiRho), Dawid Konotey-Ahulu (Redington), Phil Page (Cardano), Jay Shah (Pension Corporation), James Ray (Lombard Odier) and Alistair Wilson (24 Asset Management).
