Perennial performer

Perennial Investment Partners has been crowned the 2008 Fund Manager of the Year in the Money Management/Lonsec Fund Manager of the Year Awards.

One of the boutique’s six investment arms, Perennial Growth Management, also took out the Australian Equities (Broad Cap) category in this year’s awards, which were judged by independent research firm Lonsec.

The researcher believes Perennial displays all the characteristics of a quality boutique operation in terms of culture, ownership, alignment of interests and investment focus.

It said Perennial was differentiated from many of its peers because of its suite of boutique investment managers covering domestic equities, global equities, fixed interest and property.

In judging the awards, Lonsec singled out Perennial’s Australian equities business for “hitting a ‘sweet spot’ in 2007 in terms of team development and funds under management”.

“Perennial Growth has a high quality investment team led by Lee Mickelburough. The investment team has above average levels of experience and has demonstrated a high level of stability over recent years,” Lonsec said.

Commenting on his team’s success, Mickelburough told Money Management that it came down to two factors — the firm’s long-term track record and its business culture.

“Our track record over the last three years shows superior performance, with contributions from a range of stock picks,” he said.

“With equity ownership spread among our experienced team, who have seen many investment cycles, the interests of our investors are closely aligned with individuals who understand market cycles.”

Finalists in the overall category of Fund Manager of the Year were Macquarie Funds Management and ING Investment Management, whose names also appear in other categories this year.

In terms of winners for the other categories, Pengana Capital took out the Australian Equities (Small Cap) category, while on international markets, T. Rowe Price is this year’s International Equities (Broad Cap) Fund Manager of the Year.

Still in international waters, Treasury Asia Asset Management won the Regional/Emerging Market Equities category while RREEF Alternative Investments scored top place in the Property Securities (Global) category.

On the home front, BT Investment Management was the name at the top of the Property Securities (Australia) category.

As mentioned earlier, apart from being a finalist in the overall Fund Manager of the Year category, Macquarie Funds Management also appeared in the Fixed Interest (Diversified) category, this time as the winner, while Mercer was deemed the Multi-Manager of the Year by Lonsec.

And for the second year in a row, boutique operation Greencape Capital won the Rising Star category while also appearing as a finalist in the Australian Equities (Broad Cap) category.

In explaining the methodology for judging this year’s awards, Lonsec said that as an initial screen, a manager’s fund for a particular category needed to have a Lonsec rating.

From this screened universe, Lonsec utilised two equally-weighted components to select the winners in each category — the one-year excess return for the funds for the calendar year 2007 and a qualitative score, which included process enhancements, team stability and risk management.

The highest scoring manager from the aggregate of these two components was declared the winner in each category.

Lonsec said its aim in judging the awards was to recognise managers that have performed strongly in their category in 2007 and, equally importantly, are well-positioned to deliver superior performance in the future.

For the overall Fund Manager of the Year award, Lonsec used a voting process involving its research team.