Fund manager of the year – Allocated pensions and annuities

1st: Colonial First State

2nd: IOOF Group

3rd: State Super Financial Services

Fund manager of the year Colonial First State has shown, in taking out this award category, that bigger sometimes can be better.

Colonial First State is one of the larger providers in this sector, with four products containing over $300 million under management, dwarfing second-placed IOOF, which has just one product and $10 million under management. But the winner of this year's top award combined high returns with solid consistency and low volitility within that product suite to make it a clear winner.

Two of Colonial First State's Personal Pension Plan funds achieved high returns over one and three years, while the other two achieved solid returns and low volatility over the same period.

The returns from IOOF's single offering, its Tax-exempt Balanced Pooled Super Trust, were enough to place it ahead of a major superannuation-based provider, State Super Financial Services, which has three products and almost $400 million under management. IOOF uses an in-house funds-management team.

The result this year for allocated pensions and annuities are in stark contrast to 1997, where AM Corporation won for the second year in succession, followed by Mercantile Mutual and Zurich.

The allocated pensions and annuities sector has been the subject of renewed interest amongst fund managers recently, following last September's Federal Government reforms to assets-testing of the products. The changes have made these products more attractive to wider range of retirees by giving them increased access to government benefits.