Walk in the park for Legg Mason

Legg Mason Asset Management Australia was able to ward off fierce competition at the 2017 Money Management/Lonsec Fund Manager of the Year Awards to repeat its success from 2015 and win the Overall Fund Manager of the Year award.

According to Lonsec, manager affiliates in the Australian arm of the Baltimore-headquartered firm continued to impress the Lonsec team in various award categories with their product design and team quality across a broad range of asset classes and capabilities.

The firm scored four nominations and won awards in two categories, which ultimately resulted in it winning the top award of the night.

According to Legg Mason head of Australia and managing director, Andy Sowerby, the $46 billion Australian arm of the firm owed its success to its ability to utilise the knowledge of investment experts worldwide to add a local flavour to the Australian market. 

“We have investment capability on the grounds in Australia so we have global investment specialists and different investment teams populated around the world through a multi-affiliate model,” Sowerby said.

“But through three of the affiliates (that’s Martin Currie, Western Asset, and RARE Infrastructure), they have investment capabilities in Australia. We have resources on the ground in the local market,” he said.

Close on the heels of Legg Mason was Antipodes Partners, which was also a finalist in four categories and took home three awards. This is a successful feat for a firm that was founded in only 2015 by Jacob Mitchell in partnership with a domestic boutique incubator. 

“Their success speaks to both the risk-adjusted returns generated for investors over the assessment period and Lonsec’s overall view,” Lonsec said of the firm, whose assets under management grew to $3 billion as at March 2017.

Lazard Asset Management Pacific Co., which was crowned Overall Fund Manager of the Year in 2014, returned as a finalist this year. 

Chief executive, Rob Prugue said that while the firm was historically founded as a value shop, it had expanded into other philosophies in the last 15 years, such as growth, thematic, core, or even quantitative.

“The one common link within each of these different philosophies, however, is how we construct portfolios. In each case they tend to be more bottom-up, fundamentally-driven portfolios,” Prugue said.

“Whereas Lazard is no longer theoretically a single philosophy provider or manager, what hasn’t changed since our inception is that Lazard is a fundamentally-driven bottom-up manager whose flagship products tend to be more benchmark agnostic.”

Lazard scored nominations in two other categories and won in the Global Equities (Regional and Emerging Markets) category.

There were plenty of other winners as well, including gongs for the financial planning industry.

Global Equities (Broad Cap)

Antipodes Global Fund – Long Only

Global Equities (Regional & Emerging Markets)

Lazard Emerging Markets Fund

Responsible Investments

Legg Mason Martin Currie Ethical Income Fund

Multi-Sector

Schroder Balanced Fund – W Class

Australian Equities (Broad Cap)

Allan Gray Australia Equity Fund

Australian Equities (Small Cap)

NovaPort Microcap Fund

Equities (Long Short)

Antipodes Global Fund

Property & Infrastructure Securities

Maple-Brown Abbott Global Listed Infrastructure Fund

Alternative Investments

INVESCO Wholesale Global Targeted Returns Fund – Class A

Global Fixed Income

PIMCO Global Bond Fund – Wholesale Class

Australian Fixed Income (inc. Diversified)

Henderson Australian Fixed Interest Fund

ETF Provider

iShares

SMA Portfolio Award

DNR Capital Australian Equities High Conviction Portfolio

Retirement Product Innovation

Challenger Guaranteed Annuity

Emerging Manager

Antipodes Global Fund

Direct Property Fund

Charter Hall Direct Office Fund

Lifetime Achievement

Peeyush Gupta

Financial Planner of the Year

Charlie Fraser

Paraplanner of the Year

Rachelle Prato

Young Achiever of the Year

Scott Miller

BDM of the Year

Joe Gennusa