Aylett and Fairtree shine at new awards

A SET of three awards recognising leaders in the South African investment scheme industry and identifying the year’s most exceptional funds and fund managers was launched this week.

The inaugural annual awards, the Alexander Forbes Investments Asterisk*awards, were presented at the Financial Planning Institute of Southern Africa’s annual gala dinner this week.

The awards are the Best Equity Fund Award, Best Equity House Award and Environmental, Social and Governance Award. They are awarded to investment managers that have funds in the South African equity general category.

“The Alexander Forbes Investments Asterisk*awards seek to recognise fund managers who demonstrate investment skill by incorporating in their quantitative ranking measures that explicitly look to capture manager skill. Measures based purely on performance, or even riskadjusted performance, often fail to differentiate between skill and luck in investment outcomes,” says Leon Greyling, the chief executive of Alexander Forbes Investments.

To qualify for consideration for the inaugural awards, funds should have had at least R250 million of assets under management at the end June and a track record of at least five years.

The winners were:

● Best Equity Fund Award: Aylett Equity Prescient Fund, managed by Aylett & Co Fund Managers. The runners-up were the Fairtree Equity Prescient Fund, managed by Fairtree Capital, and the Investec Equity Fund, managed by Investec Asset Management.

● Best Equity House Award: Fairtree Equity Prescient, managed by Fairtree Capital. The runners-up were the Aylett Equity Prescient Fund, managed by Aylett & Co Fund Managers, and the PSG Equity Fund, managed by PSG Asset Management.

● Environmental, Social and Governance Award: Investec Equity Fund, managed by Investec Asset Management. The runners-up were the Prudential Equity Fund, managed by Prudential Investment Managers, and the SIM Top Choice Equity Fund, managed by Sanlam Investments. – Staff Reporter