On October 9 this year, the winners of the Professional Planner|Zenith Fund Awards 2015 will be announced at an event at Ivy Ballroom in Sydney. Today Professional Planner reveals the first tranche of finalists in these prestigious funds management awards.
The first tranche covers nine of a total of 19 fund categories, which include Distributor of the Year, and the headline Fund Manager of the Year award.
The Fund Manager of the Year award recognises excellence in the management of multiple asset classes and strategies. In order to be eligible for the Fund Manager of the Year award, managers must have been nominated as a finalist in two or more categories.
The winner is then determined by the total score the manager generates under Zenith’s proprietary scoring system for the number of category nominations and category wins. In 2014 the Fund Manager of the Year was AMP Capital, with the award accepted by investment director Jeff Brunton (pictured).
The Distributor of the Year award seeks to recognise excellence in the sales, marketing and distribution of externally managed investment products.
While new inflow represents a key consideration in the assessment of distributor of the year, it is also an assessment of fund retention (an often overlooked sales metric), quality of information flow, documentation, sales support and ongoing service to both Zenith and its financial adviser clients. The Distributor of the Year for 2014 was Macquarie Professional Series.
Zenith director David Wright says the Fund Awards recognise excellence in the application of a fund manager’s investment philosophy and process in the management of their respective capability. He says Zenith follows a robust and comprehensive process for selecting the nominees and assigning the winners of each fund category, and this process builds on Zenith’s established fund manager review and rating process.
Full coverage of the awards, including interviews with the winning managers, will appear in Professional Planner in print and online.
In coming days Professional Planner will reveal the finalists in the remaining fund categories:
- Multi asset – diversified
- Multi asset – real return
- International equities – emerging markets and regional
- International equities – alternative strategies (long/short global, long/short regional, income overlay (options))
- International equities – global
- Australian equities – alternative strategies (including long/short, income overlay (options))
- Australian equities – small cap
- Australian equities – large cap
- Distributor of the Year
Fund Manager of the Year will be announced on October 9 at the Professional Planner | Zenith Fund Awards ceremony. Tickets for this event traditionally sell out quickly and are on sale now – secure your place today.
| Fund category | 2015 Finalists (listed alphabetically) |
| A-REIT | Cromwell Property Securities |
| Legg Mason/Martin Currie Australia | |
| Zurich Investments | |
| Global REIT | Colonial First State Investments |
| Principal Global Investors | |
| Resolution Capital | |
| Direct property | AMP Capital |
| Spire Capital (Bridge IGP) | |
| Cromwell Property Securities | |
| Infrastructure | Colonial First State Investments |
| Lazard Asset Management Pacific Co | |
| Magellan Asset Management | |
| Global and diversified fixed interest | Bentham Asset Management |
| Legg Mason/Brandywine Global Asset Management | |
| PIMCO | |
| Australian fixed interest | AMP Capital |
| Perpetual Investment Management | |
| PIMCO | |
| Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) |
BetaShares Capital |
| Magellan Asset Management | |
| State Street Global Advisors | |
| Listed investment companies (LICs) |
Blue Sky Capital Management |
| Platinum Asset Management | |
| Wilson Asset Management | |
| Alternative strategies (CTA/macro, multi-strategy, fund-of-hedge-fund (FOHF), agribusiness, commodities, private equity, other) |
AQR Capital Management |
| Bennelong Long Short Equity Management | |
| Henderson Global Investors | |
| Source: Zenith Investment Partners | |
