Mawer tops the field at Investment Awards

By Staff | December 1, 2011 | Last updated on December 1, 2011
3 min read

The theme song for the night could have been “More, More, More”—or rather, “Mawer, Mawer, Mawer”—at the 17th annual Morningstar Canadian Investment Awards last night, as the Calgary based asset manager walked away with eight top awards.

That edged out RBC/Philips, Hager & North, which took five top awards.

Among the honours Mawer won were Best Canadian Equity Fund and Best Global Small/Mid Cap Equity Fund (meet that manager here) and Domestic Equity Fund Manager of the Year, taken by Martin Ferguson, director and portfolio manager, Mawer Investment Management Ltd.

“In the long term, Martin Ferguson has done a fantastic job,” said David O’Leary, director of fund analysis for Morningstar Canada. “His main mandate is Mawer New Canada, a Canadian small/mid cap fund. It is a relatively large fund by standards of a Canadian small cap fund, managing about $1.2 billion in assets, and that comes into play because some of the stocks in that space are fairly illiquid.”

This marks the third time Mawer has won a Manager of the Year award.

The Morningstar Foreign Equity Fund Manager of the Year award went to Mackenzie Financial’s Paul Musson, who took over the Ivy team when Jerry Javasky retired in 2008.

“Under Musson’s leadership, the Ivy group really operates as a team, essentially looking for quality companies with clean balance sheets,” O’Leary said. “Investors who stuck with Mackenzie Ivy Foreign Equity were rewarded during the market downturn. Year to date, the fund is only up about 2.5%, but it’s been a really rocky period, especially for foreign equities, so it really is an outstanding performance for that period.”

TD Asset Management won the Morningstar Fixed Income Fund Manager of the Year.

“The huge team includes a risk management team alone of 26 people so that’s why we didn’t just pick one individual team member for the award,” O’Leary said. “The strong, long-term performance reflects the rigorous, extensive research process of this deep and experienced team.”

The Advisors’ Choice Investment Fund Company of the Year award went to Fidelity Investments. This award is voted on by a committee of jurors that spans Canadian advisors, mutual fund, hedge fund, and other investment fund companies. Advisors consider quality and range of products, performance, fees, service, education, community investment, and management criteria.

“Fidelity is very honoured to be chosen by Canadian advisors as their favourite mutual fund company this year,” said Rob Strickland, president, Fidelity Investments Canada ULC. “This award reflects our deep commitment to Canadian financial advisors and our support of the strong work they do with investors in this tough investing environment. We are happy to play a key role in their business, and we thank them for their continued support.”

Fund analysts had a different favourite, however, naming Dynamic Funds the Analysts’ Choice Investment Fund Company of the Year. This award is chosen by the Investment Fund Analyst Committee, which includes Morningstar analysts as well as other analysts from across the industry. The criteria include performance, risk management, breadth of offerings, investor and advisor education, fund governance, and investor communication.

When it comes to investor education, Sun Life took home the IFIC Investor Education Award recognized for its user-friendly and interactive website www.myretirementcafe.ca.

Advisor.ca staff

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.