Home / Funds Management / Perpetual takes out Zenith top funds award

Perpetual Asset Management Australia won three categories in last Friday’s annual Zenith Partners awards, including the top ‘Fund Manager of the Year’. In the other major categories, Fidante Partners picked up the ‘Distributor of the Year’ and Eiger Capital the ‘Rising Star’ award. ClearBridge Investments effectively received two awards, that for ‘Infrastructure’, while the firm’s managing director and co-founder, Richard Elmslie, received the ‘Industry Contribution Award’.

Perpetual’s other two awards, handed down during a live stream event from Melbourne last Friday (October 15), were for ‘Australian Equities – Alternative Strategies’ and for ‘Multi-Asset – Real Return’. Rob Adams, the chief executive of Perpetual, said that the last full financial year was exceptional for the firm across all asset sectors. “It’s exciting for us to be coming out of 10 years of growth over value. Despite the headwinds from a style perspective [Perpetual being one of Australia’s oldest value managers] we are now coming through the other side.” He said: “We really value this recognition highly… And I’d like to congratulate David [Wright, the Zenith chief executive] and the team too.” The two other finalists for the award were Macquarie Asset Management and Pendal Group, which also picked up awards in two other categories.

Nick Hamilton, the chief executive of Challenger International’s funds management business, Fidante Partners, said that his award as “Distributor of the Year’ recognised the efforts across so many people in the business, from the 15 boutiques themselves, to the research teams, key accounts managers, investment specialists and sales. David Wright said that distribution was becoming increasingly important in the industry because of the increasing competitiveness of many asset sectors, especially global and Australian equities, the two biggest asset classes from an allocation perspective. Richard Elmslie, a pioneer of the listed infrastructure asset class through RARE Infrastructure – now a part of the US-based ClearBridge group – said that the motivation in 2003-2004 when the business was launched was to bring the characteristics of the asset class to the mums-and-dads investors for the first time. “We wanted to provide them with the same stable risk-adjusted return profiles, previously only available to institutional investors,” he said. “It is very satisfying to go out and meet people knowing that you have helped them with their retirement savings.” The winners in all categories were: Fund Manager of the Year Perpetual Asset Management Australia Distributor of the Year Fidante Partners Industry Contribution Award Richard Elmslie Rising Star Eiger Capital Sustainable and Responsible Investments Pendal Group Australian Equities – Large Cap Bennelong Australian Equity Partners Australian Equities – Small Cap Spheria Asset Management Australian Equities – Alternative Strategies Perpetual Asset Management Australia International Equities – Global Small Cap Fairlight Asset Management International Equities – Global Macquarie Asset Management/Arrowstreet Capital International Equities – Alternative Strategies PM Capital International Equities – Emerging Markets & Regional CC RWC Global Emerging Markets Fund Multi Asset – Real Return Perpetual Asset Management Australia Multi Asset – Diversified BlackRock Alternative Strategies Firetrail Investments Listed Entities Metrics Credit Partners Australian Fixed Interest Realm Investment House Global & Diversified Fixed Interest Macquarie Asset Management Infrastructure ClearBridge Investments Limited Real Assets Charter Hall Group Global REIT Quay Global Investors AREIT Cromwell Funds Management For other coverage and information, go to www.zenithpartners.com.au