Portfolio Adviser has revealed the winners of its annual Fund Awards for 2019 with Baillie Gifford taking the Readers’ Choice award and Liontrust walking away with the inaugural ESG honour.
Awards were given out across 19 categories during a gala lunch on Thursday attended by the great and the good of the industry held at the prestigious Rosewood Hotel in London.
PA editor Sebastian Cheek handed platinum and gold awards to funds and asset managers chosen by a 20-strong judging panel comprising the UK’s top professional fund buyers.
Methodology
Unlike other awards that are backward looking, the PA Fund Awards is not based on funds’ past performance or those that tend to frequent buy lists. Instead it recognises the funds that the judges would be happy to put their clients’ money with looking forward over a three-year horizon.
Judges were asked to choose three funds in each category based on a simple question: For a brand-new client with cash to invest, looking ahead with an investment horizon of at least three years, what are your top-three fund recommendations in each category?
Once the winners were collated, Morningstar, led by CIO Dan Kemp, conducted due diligence on each fund.
In addition to the asset class categories, this year for the first time PA handed out an award for best ESG fund management group. The readers’ choice award was presented by Geoff Mills, founder and director at RSMR, which sponsored the event.
The PA Award winners for 2019 are:
| Category | Gold | Platinum |
| Asia Pacific ex Japan Equity | First State Asia Focus | Invesco Asian UK |
| European Equity | Jupiter European | Blackrock European Dynamic |
| US Equity | Merian North American Equity | Artemis US Extended Alpha |
| Emerging market equity | Lazard Emerging Markets | Fidelity Institutional Emerging Markets |
| Global Equity | Artemis Global Select | Fidelity Global Special Sits |
| Japan Equity | Baillie Gifford Japanese | Man GLG Japan CoreAlpha |
| UK Equity | Liontrust Special Situations | Man GLG Undervalued Assets |
| UK Equity Income | Man GLG UK Income Retail / Schroder Income | Threadneedle UK Equity Alpha |
| UK Smaller Companies | Liontrust UK Smaller Companies | Merian UK Smaller Companies |
| International smaller companies | Goldman Sachs Global Small Cap CORE Equity | SLI Global Smaller Companies |
| International Equity Income | Guinness Global Equity Income | Artemis Global Income |
| Emerging market fixed income | Ashmore Sicav Emerging Markets Short Duration | M&G Emerging Markets Bond |
| Developed market fixed income | Legg Mason Brandywine Global Fixed Income | M&G Global Macro Bond |
| UK fixed income | Blackrock Corporate Bond | Royal London Corporate Bond |
| Unconstrained fixed income | Jupiter Startegic Bond | MI Twenty Four AM Dynamic Bond |
| Property | Janus Henderson UK Property Paif | L&G UK Property |
| Absolute return | IFSL Brooks Macdonald Defensive Capital | Jupiter Absolute Return |
| ESG fund management group | Impax Asset Management | Liontrust |
| Readers’ choice | Baillie Gifford |
