Parvus European Absolute Opportunities, a long/short European equity fund run by former Mercury Asset Management/Merrill Lynch Investment Managers fund manager Edoardo Mercadante, collected the European Hedge Fund of the Year award at the annual EuroHedge Awards in London last week.
In doing so, Parvus became the successor to The Children’s Investment Fund, which was Fund of the Year in both of the previous two years at the EuroHedge Awards. Given that Parvus is an affiliate of TCI Fund Management, it also continues the TCI group’s remarkable run of successes at the awards.
Other big winners this year included the GLG Emerging Markets fund, which took away two prizes – for best New Fund of the Year in non-equity strategies, and also for best fund in High Yield, Emerging Markets & Distressed Debt – with a return of just under 60% for the year.
The much-coveted Management Firm of the Year Award was won this time by RAB Capital, reflecting the London-listed firm’s success in achieving the highest weighted outperformance over the EuroHedge medians across its range of products, as well as the fastest rate of growth among the leading firms.
Previous winners who took awards again included the Lansdowne UK fund in UK Equity and Gartmore’s European equity team, headed by Roger Guy and Guillaume Rambourg, who took an award for their AlphaGen Tucana fund in the category for big European equity funds with assets of over $500 million. An award for that category also went to Modulus Europe, which won in the Dollar class, while Tucana won in the Euro class.
The Sark fund, managed by Boussard & Gavaudan Asset Management, took the award again for Convertibles & Equity Arbitrage. And Capital Fund Management, based in Paris, which won two awards last year, took the award this time for Equity Market Neutral & Quantitative Strategies with its Ventus statistical arbitrage fund.
While many other previous winners were nominated again, the other categories mostly had new winners this time. After several near misses in previous years, Winton Diversified was the winner in Managed Futures, while other awards were taken by firms including JP Morgan Asset Management, Morley Fund Management, TT Group and NewSmith Capital.
Over 1,000 people attended the EuroHedge Awards dinner.The complete list of winners by category was:UK EQUITY Lansdowne UKSMALL CAPS Focus Capital InvestorsEUROPEAN EQUITY (under $500m) JPMF Europe DynamicEUROPEAN EQUITY (over $500m) AlphaGen Tucana Modulus EuropeGLOBAL EQUITY UC FinancialsEMERGING MARKET EQUITY UFG Russia SelectEVENT DRIVEN TT Event DrivenEQUITY MARKET NEUTRAL & QUANT STRATEGIES Ventus Statistical ArbitrageCONVERTIBLES & EQUITY ARBITRAGE SarkMIXED ARBITRAGE & MULTI-STRATEGY MKM Longboat Multi-StrategyFIXED INCOME Morley G7 Fixed IncomeCREDIT NewSmith European CreditSPECIALIST CREDIT NAC European CreditHIGH YIELD, EMERGING MARKET & DISTRESSED DEBT GLG Emerging MarketsMACRO Auriel Global MacroMANAGED FUTURES Winton DiversifiedNEW FUND OF THE YEAR – ARBITRAGE, RELATIVE VALUE & MACRO GLG Emerging MarketsNEW FUND OF THE YEAR – EQUITY STRATEGIES RadarMANAGEMENT FIRM OF THE YEAR RAB CapitalFUND OF THE YEAR
To qualify, funds must submit their data to the EuroHedge database, which captures about 90% of all European funds. For the main categories, funds need to meet a minimum asset average of $200 million over the past 12 months, with the exception only of the Small Caps and Specialist Credit awards – where the minimum level is set at $100 million.
The Sharpe Ratio is used to select the nominees. The best performer amongst the nominees then wins each award, providing the fund’s Sharpe Ratio is within 25% of the best Sharpe Ratio in the category. The New Fund of the Year categories, as well as overall Fund of the Year and the Management Firm of the Year, do not lend themselves to a Sharpe Ratio comparison alone, so an array of other quantitative measures is used to decide these awards.