Boutiques lead winners at 2007 InvestHedge Awards |
Date: Friday, March 14, 2008
Author: Hedge Fund Intelligence
More than 400 of the leading players in the global fund Press Release: Boutiques lead winners at 2007 InvestHedge Awards 14 March 2008 Page 2 of 4 Once again emerging managers returned more than the Global Multi-Strategy Composite, proving that younger managers do still tend to add value. This year for the first time after five years of successive nominations and only ever narrowly missing out, Protégé Partners in New York took home the Emerging Managers Award. This year’s two new awards took into account the funds of funds’ industry’s growing sophistication and asset flows from institutional investors. More than half of the European Equity nominees actually had other strategies in the portfolio, leading to the creation of a separate European Multi-Strategy Award, won this year by RBS Asset Management’s Orbita European Growth Strategy, which had also been nominated for the past four years. Archstone took home the first ever Long Term Performance Award for Global Multi- Strategy Funds with more than $1 billion in assets and a 10-year track record. The New York-based firm, which has more than $4.5 billion under management, has had 13 nominations over the years in a number of categories, and has won four InvestHedge Awards at in the past. Persistent Edge Management won the Asian Strategies Award for the second year running, while Lyrical Partners in New York, took home the accolade for US Strategies also for the second year in a row. Berens Capital Management scored a hat-trick, taking home the Global Equity Award for its Berens Global Value Fund for the third consecutive year. Permal, which has had 18 nominations over the years and won two previous awards, took home the Commodities & Natural Resources Award for its Permal Multi-Manager Natural Resources Fund. Blackstone Alternative Asset Management took home Institutional Firm of the Year for a second time. The New York-based firm won that award in 2002, as well as racking up a total of 19 nominations over the years, including a record breaking eight last night. The complete list of winners by category: US Strategies Lyrical Multi-Manager Fund Asian Strategies Persistent Edge Asia Partners Emerging Markets H21 BRIC Plus Global Equity Berens Global Value Fund Global Multi-Strategy Fund ($100m - $500m) The Merriwell Fund Limited Partnership Global Multi-Strategy Fund (over $500m) Thames River Warrior European Equity RMF Long/Short Equity Europe European Multi-Strategy Orbita European Growth Strategy Press Release: Boutiques lead winners at 2007 InvestHedge Awards 14 March 2008 Page 3 of 4 Arbitrage SSARIS Relative Value Strategy Event Driven & Distressed GEMS Recovery Portfolio Global Macro Trading Capital Holdings Commodities & Natural Resources Permal Multi-Manager Natural Resources Fund Fixed Income & Credit Mont Blanc Fixed Income Fund Asset Based Lending & Finance Mont Blanc Select Emerging Managers Protégé Partners 10-Year Performance Awards Archstone Partners Group of the Year The Capital Holdings Funds/LCF Rothschild Group Institutional Firm of the Year Blackstone Alternative Asset Management New Fund of the Year H21 BRIC Plus Fund of the Year GEMS Recovery Portfolio Background & decision criteria The event, which was held at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan, recognised outstanding performance in the funds of funds industry based primarily on the Sharpe ratio, a measure of returns above the risk-free rate divided by standard deviation. Apart from New Fund of the Year, the minimum asset size to qualify was $100 million. Nominees also had to beat their peer group median return in order to qualify. The Sharpe ratio for the calendar year was used to select the shortlist in each of the main categories; thereafter, the fund with the best return won – providing its Sharpe was also within 25% of the fund with the best Sharpe ratio in the category. Prizes thus went to the funds that, by our methodology, displayed the best risk-adjusted returns for the year. The reason for the two-tiered Sharpe ratio and return as the deciding criteria is that it is designed to reflect what investors are looking for – namely strong risk-adjusted returns, but also ultimately strong performance. For some of the award categories, the Sharpe ratio alone was not an appropriate screen. For example, with more than 480 management groups now in the InvestHedge fund of funds Press Release: Boutiques lead winners at 2007 InvestHedge Awards 14 March 2008 Page 4 of 4 universe, to qualify for Group of the Year we stipulated that nominees needed to have either at least $10 billion in discretionary assets in funds of funds and at least one nomination for the various other award categories – or at least three nominations and at least $3 billion in assets. The Group of the Year nominations were decided by various quantitative factors – including the weighted average Sharpe ratio across the firm’s product range, out-performance of the InvestHedge medians (weighted by assets), as well as growth of assets under management both by absolute amount and in percentage terms. Institutional Firm of the Year is the only award based on asset growth rather than performance. For this, the number of mandates won as recorded by InvestHedge over the past year, combined with asset growth, both in absolute and percentage terms as measured in the InvestHedge Billion Dollar Club, were among the factors taken into account. Nominees also needed to have more than 80% of their assets coming from the institutional market. To qualify, funds must provide their data to InvestHedge, which has the largest funds of funds database and a team of data analysts that compile the performance numbers and indices for the global funds of funds industry each month. For more information, please visit the InvestHedge website at ~ Ends ~ Notes: About InvestHedge, which is published by HedgeFund Intelligence, the leading provider of news, analysis and performance data on the global hedge fund industry, focuses on investors in hedge funds, including the entire global funds of funds industry. HedgeFund Intelligence provides dedicated information on European, Asian and US single managers and on hedge fund investors. For more information contact: Niki Natarajan, Tel: + 44 (0) 207 779 7360 nnatarajan@hedgefundintelligence.com Susan Barreto, Tel: +1 773 463 4317 sbarreto@hedgefundintelligence.com Neil Wilson, Editorial Director, HedgeFund Intelligence Tel: +44 (0) 20 7779 7359 nwilson@hedgefundintelligence.com Paul Farrow / Abbie Thomas, Merlin PR Tel: +44 (0) 207 653 6620 pfarrow@merlinpr.com Armel Leslie, Walek & Associates Tel: + 212 590 0530 aleslie@walek.com
of hedge funds industry came together last night at the Pierre Hotel in New York for the
sixth annual InvestHedge Funds of Hedge Funds Awards for the best risk adjusted
performance among the global funds of hedge funds universe.
The GEMS group, founded in 1987, walked away with two awards, including the
prestigious Fund of the Year prize, the nominees for which were unveiled at the Award
ceremony in New York on 13 March. GEMS, which has $5 billion under management, also
won the Event Driven & Distressed category.
Sixteen groups took home 20 awards, with four funds of hedge funds each picking up two
accolades. Ten of the 16 firms could be considered boutiques as defined by size of firm
and investment philosophies. This year’s winners were split evenly between US-based
firms and European companies.
Peak Partners in Geneva walked away with the Fixed Income & Credit and Asset Based
Lending & Finance awards, while The Capital Holding Funds/LCF Rothschild Group
collectively took home Group of the Year, as well as the Global Macro Award for LCF
Rothschild Group’s Trading Capital Holdings.
Newcomer Horizon21 Alternative Investments, founded by Rainer-Marc Frey, founder of
RMF, now owned by the Man Group, also won two awards. H21 BRIC Plus won the
Emerging Markets category and New Fund of the Year. While Frey’s former firm RMF
Investments won the European Equity category.
Among this year’s winners were many new names including State Street’s SSARIS
Relative Value Strategy that won the Arbitrage Award, FutureSelect Portfolio
Management’s The Merriwell Fund Limited Partnership, winner of Global Multi-Strategy
<$500 million, while Thames River Capital’s Thames River Warrior Fund took home the
award for Global Multi-Strategy with assets >$500 million.