The European rating agency Scope, together with media partner Handelsblatt, presented this year’s Investment Awards, recognising outstanding asset management and the best fund concepts, corporate webpage reported.
The Scope Awards are presented every year by Scope Group, provider of independent ratings, research and risk analyses. This year’s award recipients were chosen from a pool of over 4,500 funds and 280 asset managers.
“Global economic uncertainties, an end to the policy of cheap money, and competition by passive investment strategies are creating immense challenges for asset managers today,” said Florian Schoeller, Scope Group’s CEO and founder, at the awards ceremony.
The Scope Investment Awards were handed out in 13 fund and 13 asset management categories for Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
US asset manager Fidelity International took the most awards, winning in four categories – among them, Best Universal Asset Manager in Germany. Fidelity’s product range, one of the most comprehensive across all major asset classes, and its consistently exceptional performance were factors in the multiple wins.
Other winners in the highly contested category of Best Universal Asset Manager were Kepler Fonds for Austria and BlackRock Asset Management for the Swiss market. Kepler’s product range has one of the highest proportions of top-rated funds of any asset manager. BlackRock convinced not only with its global presence in over 100 locations but also by being an innovative leader in deploying Big Data for alpha strategies.
Among institutional providers, the award for best asset manager went to Lupus Alpha for Germany and T. Rowe Price for both Austria and Switzerland.
A special mention goes to Comgest, which won best asset manager in Equity Funds for the fifth time in a row.
For the special award, Fund Innovations, an expert jury – consisting of Dr Kurt Michael Becker (Institutional Money), Ingo Narat (Handelsblatt) and Thomas Züttel (fundinfo) – decided upon Seasonax Market Neutral, whose investment approach is based on an innovative trading logic reflecting seasonal and cyclical patterns.