Traditional managers eye hedge fund space

Big and traditional managers are encroaching further on the space of alternative managers, gauging by winners and finalists at the sector’s annual awards on Friday night.

The Australian Alternative Investment Awards, held in conjunction with the Hedge Funds Rock charity night at the Sydney Hilton, December 10, represented a welcome live, and lively, event for the hedge funds and alternatives managers sector.

Traditional and established managers such as Perpetual Investments, Janus Henderson, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Legg Mason (acquired by Franklin Templeton), Acadian Asset Management, Stewart Investors (part of First Sentier Investors), BlackRock (the world’s largest fund manager), Neuberger Berman and multi-affiliate Pinnacle Investment Management all featured as finalists or winners on the night.

Pinnacle told the story. A sponsor for the first time, it was well represented by founder Ian Macoun and chairman Alan Watson, head of retail distribution Rasmin Jajoo and a table of senior executives.

Macoun said, before presenting the major award of the night to L1 Capital as ‘Alternative Investment Manager of the Year’, that most of Pinnacle’s growth in future would come from the alternatives space.

Pinnacle received the award for ‘Best Investor Supporting Australian Alternative Managers’. The firm last month announced its first private equity affiliate through a 25 per cent stake in Five V Capital.

The awards night represented the 20^th anniversary of Hedge Funds Rock. For the 20^th time, Kim Ivey, one of the founding fathers of the hedge fund industry in Australia, presided over the event – 350 fund managers, investors and service providers getting together in person for the first time in two years.

Ivey, the chairman of the Alternative Future Foundation, which oversees the charitable contributions, said: “The judging panel for this year’s awards was unanimously positive on the quality of the returns across all strategy classifications. Because risk-adjusted returns are being measured within strategy peer groups, we always find that managers which capture good upside returns with tight downside protection, do extremely well for their investors… and rank extremely high in our judging criteria.”

He also said they were particularly pleased to add a new award, ‘Best Specialist ESG Manager’ to reflect the growing importance of ESG factors in the alternative investment industry and manager performance.

That award was won by the Impax Sustainable Leaders fund, which had produced a massive 34.7 per cent return for the year to June. The award was appropriately sponsored by the global administration and data company Apex, an awards supporter which recently launched a specialist ESG information product in the region.

L1 Capital, which has six Australian and international equities and property funds on offer, took out the ‘Best Listed Alternatives Investment Product’ award as well as the major alternative manager of the year award, accepted by Alexander Ordon, investment specialist. The Melbourne-based firm was launched in 2007 by co-managing directors Raphael Lamm and Mark Landau.

In other popular investment categories, winners included BlackRock for ‘Best Offshore Manager Operating in Australia’, Metrics Credit for ‘Best Private Debt Fund’, Partners Group for ‘Best Multi-Strategy Fund’, Alceon for ‘Best Long/Short Equity Fund’ and Opal Capital Management for ‘Best Emerging Manager’.

And the ‘Contribution to the Australian Hedge Fund Industry’ award was a big surprise to its recipient, or so he said. It was awarded this year to this masthead’s own Greg Bright, journalist and publisher, who has been reporting on and helping others write about the hedge fund sector since he launched his first of many investment publications (Super Review) in 1987.

Lachlan Maddock

Lachlan is editor of Investor Strategy News and has extensive experience covering institutional investment.