Once again we are gearing up for our annual Fund Management Awards, where What Investment highlights the top-performing retail funds and management houses across both open-ended and closed-ended funds.

The announcement of the 2007 winners will be made in the November issue, but this month we are announcing the shortlists from which the winners will be chosen, all of whom have outperformed their peers in our award categories.

The What Investment Fund Management Awards are among the longest-established in the sector, now in their 23rd year. They aim to reward fund managers who have delivered superior performance to investors through a variety of economic conditions and market profiles.

The awards comprise eight categories: Unit Trust Management Group, Specialist Unit Trust Group, Unit Trust Manager, Most Consistent Unit Trust, Investment Trust Management Group, Generalist Investment Trust, Specialist Investment Trust and Most Consistent Investment Trust - with an overall award for the What Investment Fund Management Group of the Year, based on the results of the other award categories.

Each shortlist of nominees is created using a number of performance-based criteria, with data provided by Financial Express. The shortlists are then considered by a panel of independent analysts and advisers to determine the winner of each award.

The names in the frame for the 2007 What Investment Fund Management Awards are as follows:

Unit trust awards
Unit Trust Management Group
This award is designed to reward fund management groups that have shown consistently superior investment returns across their entire range of funds over various time periods and measured against their peers. Companies running fewer than five unit trusts or that accept only institutional money are excluded from this award.

To ensure that the award recognises fund management skill rather than a run of good luck, each individual fund was judged against funds with similar investment objectives. Fund performance was examined over one, two, three, four and five years to 31 August 2007. Funds were then given a percentile ranking to represent the position the fund would occupy if there happened to be 100 funds in the sector. The lower the percentile figure, the better the fund has performed against other unit trusts in its sector. The average percentile score for each unit trust company was then calculated.

Shortlist (10 nominees)

• Artemis Fund Managers

• GAM Sterling Management

• Invesco Perpetual Fund Managers

• JPMorgan Asset Management (UK)

• Jupiter UT Managers

• M&G UK

• Marlborough Fund Managers

• Neptune Investment Management

• Rathbone UT Managers

• Rensburg Fund Management

Specialist Unit Trust Group

This award focuses on companies that have funds invested in overseas markets and specific sectors of the stock market such as UK Smaller Companies or Healthcare. The performance calculations are made on a similar basis to the main UT Group award.

Since only pure equity funds qualify for this award, funds invested in the money markets, property, gilt and fixed interest, and UK equity and bond sectors are excluded. Funds must have exhibited performance over a five-year period, and management groups must have three qualifying funds to be classified as a ‘group’.

Shortlist (12 nominees)

• Artemis Fund Managers

• AXA Framlington Investment Mngt

• BlackRock ML Managers

• Invesco Perpetual Fund Managers

• JPMorgan Asset Management (UK)

• Jupiter UT Managers

• Marlborough Fund Managers

• Neptune Investment Management

• New Star Investment Funds

• Rathbone UT Managers

• Rensburg Fund Management

• Standard Life Investments

Unit Trust Manager

Our third award seeks to identify the fund that has outperformed its sector by the greatest margin over the 12-month period to 31 August 2007. Each fund is measured against funds with similar investment objectives. The shortlist comprises the funds that have outperformed their IMA sector to the greatest degree.

Shortlist (10 nominees)

• Allianz RCM BRIC Stars

• Artemis New Enterprises

• CF JM Finn Global Opportunities

• CF Ruffer European

• Gartmore China Opportunities

• L&G UK Alpha

• Marlborough Special Situations

• Neptune Global Alpha

• Scottish Widows Latin American

• Threadneedle Pan Eur Sm Cos Most Consistent Unit Trust

This award compares one-year relative performance over a five-year period to 31 August 2007. One-year performance figures were run on a three-month rolling basis over five years to find the funds that had the most consistently high placings within their IMA sectors over every one of these periods. A maximum of two top-performing trusts from each sector have been shortlisted.

Shortlist (9 nominees)

• AXA Framlington Japan

• F&C Latin American Equity

• Gartmore China Opportunities

• JPM Natural Resources

• JPM New Europe

• Invesco Perpetual Latin American

• M&G Global Basics

• Neptune Global Equity

• Scottish Widows Latin American

Investment trust awards
Investment Trust Management Group

Our main award for the Investment Trust Management Group of the Year measures the performance of all the investment trust portfolios run by each investment group against their peers over a period of five years to 31 August 2007.

To qualify, a group must have managed at least three investment trusts and have managed these for a minimum of three years. Data provider Financial Express examined each trust’s NAV total return over the five years to 31 August 2007 and compared each trust with its relevant benchmark index. A note was then taken of each trust’s relative performance and an average relative performance calculated.

Shortlist (7 nominees)

• Baillie Gifford & Company

• Fidelity Investments International

• Gartmore Fund Managers

• Henderson Global Investors

• JPMorgan Asset Management

• Merrill Lynch Investment Managers

• Standard Life Investments Generalist Investment Trust

This award is based on five-year NAV performance, again to 31 August 2007. In this category, ‘generalist’ is taken to mean a trust with a broad investment policy and a simple share structure. This means that funds specialising in particular markets or sectors are excluded, as are most split-capital investment trusts, although splits with an identifiable general investment brief, preferably with packaged units, are included.

Shortlist (7 nominees)

• British Empire Securities & General Trust

• Hansa Trust

• Law Debenture Corporation

• Murray International Trust

• Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust

• SVM Global Fund

• World Trust Fund

Specialist Investment Trust

The Specialist Investment Trust of the Year was calculated on the same basis as Best Generalist Trust, but excludes generalist trusts and is intended to cover trusts with specialist sector or geographical mandates. Performance was measured on five-year NAV figures.

Shortlist (9 nominees)

• Advance Developing Markets Trust

• City Natural Resources High Yield Trust

• Eastern European Trust

• JPMorgan Emerging Markets Investment Trust

• JPMorgan Indian Investment Trust

• JPMorgan Russian Securities

• Merrill Lynch World Mining Trust

• Templeton Emerging Markets Investment Trust

• US Special Opportunities Trust

Most Consistent Investment Trust

This award compares one-year relative performance over a five-year period to 31 August 2007. This means that Financial Express has ranked all the shares in the investment trust universe over one year for 2002/03, 2003/04, 2004/05, 2005/06 and 2006/07 on the basis of their one-year NAV total return and then used these ranking positions to establish an average ranking number. The lower this number, the higher the ranking of the fund.

Shortlist (10 nominees)

• Edinburgh US Tracker Trust

• Finsbury Worldwide Pharmaceutical Trust

• HSBC Global Absolute Fund

• JPMorgan American Investment Trust

• JPMorgan Fleming Japanese Investment Trust

• Life Offices Opportunities Trust

• Personal Assets Trust

• Prelude Trust

This article is from the October 2007 issue of What Investment.

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