Boutiques managers dominate Australian equities awards

Boutique fund managers have completely outrated their larger rivals to dominate the Australian equities category in the 2005 Money Management Fund Manager of the Year awards.

MIR Investment Management, set up in 2003 by Lazard Asset Management Asia Pacific founder Michael Triguboff, won the award for the best Australian equities manager in the country ahead of fellow boutiques Ausbil Dexia and Prime Value Asset Management.

In a clear sign of how quickly MIR has shot to the top, it was also named the Rising Star of this year’s awards.

At 39.6 per cent for the year to February, the return from MIR's Australian equities fund left some of its bigger competitors for dead, and clearly impressed researchers.

Assirt fund analyst Veronica Gullo said: "I think we’ve seen some wonderful boutiques come out that are really giving these big guys a run for their money.”

“[MIR] don't survive on risk controls just from an investment point of view, but from a business management point of view and that's very unusual in a boutique,” she adds.

Triguboff said the group’s meteoric rise had been built on a solid investment process.

"MIR believes eliminating from the long portfolio the losing stocks is more effective than the generally accepted objective of identifying the winners. These loser value stocks are potential shorts," he said.