Rising stars shine in difficult times

Boutique value manager,Investors MutualLimited (IML), has scored the first ever Rising Star Award, which recognises new and emerging managers across the industry.

Funds across all traditional sectors were eligible for the award, providing they were launched in the past five years, had a one to five-year performance record, less than $5 billion in locally sourced funds under management and were rated as investment grade by Assirt.

IML, which was launched in 1998 by Anton Tagliaferro, won the award on the back of its outstanding capability in Australian equities.

Assirt’s Steve Gamarov says the performance of IML in Australian equities exceeded that of its peers and the group continues to move from strength to strength.

IML’s investment process follows a disciplined and logical approach, according to Assirt, which also rated the group’s business management and operating capability as strong.

IML is still 50 per cent owned by Tagliaferro and also took out first prize in the Australian equities division of this year’s Fund Manager of the Year Awards.

Dimensional Fund Advisors (DFA) took out second place in the Rising Star awards. Dimensional has three Australian equities funds, one a deep value fund, which all did very well. Assirt says DFA has experienced strong performance in all sectors in line with its investment objectives.

Ethical investment specialistHunter Hall, which employs a value style approach to investing, took third place in the Rising Star awards. Assirt says Hunter Hall has enjoyed relatively strong investment returns that have resulted in strong funds inflow over the past few years.

Gamarov says that because of the short performance history of the managers in the Rising Star category, selecting winners was more a qualitative than a quantitative process.

“It was a more forward-thinking process,” he says.