Neptune Investment Management racks up another win, coming out on top in the Specialist Unit Trust Group of the Year category.

Founded in 2002 as an independent and privately owned investment management company, Neptune now has more than £2 billion in funds under management.

The 2007 awards marked the first year that Neptune qualified for entry into this category, and once again they have walked away with gold. Neptune has an enviable reputation within the investment industry for its ability to outperform. It focuses exclusively on fund management, and its active global sector approach to investment is Neptune’s differentiating factor, which it believes provides investors with the best opportunity for superior returns.

A defined process
The core of Neptune’s consistent outperformance is driven by a combination of a global sector overview and strong bottom-up stockpicking – a process applied across its wide range of funds.

As chief investment officer Robin Geffen observes, ‘Neptune’s investment philosophy is built on the premise that global companies dominate the areas in which they operate. As such, there is usually no more than a handful of companies in each area worth investing in. Once we have identified those global sectors with the best opportunities for growth, the team selects the best companies in those sectors, regardless of where they are based.’

Second again
Once again pipped to the post by Neptune, Artemis comes in a close second, having delivered consistently good performance across a wide range of investment mandates. Since the first funds were launched in 1998, Artemis has established a reputation for strong investment performance in up as well as down markets.

Artemis aims to identify areas of the market with the greatest potential for growth, or to be aware of the reversals of fortune before it’s too late to do anything about it. Mark Tyndall, CEO and founding partner of Artemis, explains, ‘We believe the keys to this process are “rerating and momentum”: finding stocks or sectors that have the potential to be reassessed by the market, with consequent improvements in prospects and earnings.’

Flexible approach
Third place goes to Rensburg Fund Management, which has established a strong track record across its unit trust range through its active approach to investment management, coupled with its extensive research capabilities.

Rensburg’s investment approach combines long-term strategy with short-term tactical allocation to enable its fund managers to instantly take advantage of market movements as they happen.