Threadneedle dominates Investment Week awards

Threadneedle was the big winner at the Investment Week, sister title of IFAonline and Professional Adviser, Fund Manager of the Year Awards, landing the prestigious Group of the Year accolade at the Royal Albert Hall.

The group also won two category awards - Richard House, manager of the Threadneedle Emerging Market Debt fund was named Specialist Bond Manager of the Year, while Sarah Arkle and Alex Lyle, managers of Threadneedle's Equity and Bond fund won the Cautious Managed category.

The group beat a shortlist of Jupiter, M&G, Fidelity and BNY Mellon to be named Group of the Year, while Neptune Investment Management won Specialist Group of the Year ahead of First State, Smith & Williamson, Martin Currie and J O Hambro Capital Management.

Threadneedle was praised by judges, one of whom said: "This award is aimed at those groups who do not have a full fund range across the main asset classes, but instead have specialised in individual sectors or areas of expertise.

"The winner this year is a group which has grown rapidly through sheer investment excellence initially in some niche markets but increasingly in the mainstream. It has also diversified away from a reliance on one well known manager to create a stable of impressive managers across disciplines."

There was another award for Invesco Perpetual's Neil Woodford who manages three of the five funds shortlisted in the UK Income sector, running around £12bn of assets in the category.

He was named UK Income Manager of the Year, while First State's Angus Tulloch landed two awards. Tulloch, alongside Jonathan Asante, won the Global Emerging Markets category for Global Emerging Markets Leaders.

Another notable winner this year was Old Mutual Asset Managers' head of equities, Ashton Bradbury, who was given the outstanding achievement award.

Bradbury has been a past winner of an individual fund manager award when he was actively running portfolios but the judges said he has successfully made the transition to the role of head of equities as evidenced by the general performance across the board of OMAM's funds.

His colleague Dan Nickols and the rest of the Old Mutual UK Smaller Companies team were recognised by the judges in the UK Smaller Companies category.

Elsewhere, M&G landed two awards with Richard Woolnough taking the UK Corporate Bond award and Graham French won the Active Managed award for his Managed Growth vehicle. The global bond category was won by Paul Thursby & Peter Geikie Cobb for the Thames River Global Bond fund.

Other winners were:

• Specialist Global Emerging Markets: Allan Conway & Waj Hashmi for Schroder ISF Bric
• Europe: Chris Rice - for Cazenove European Equity and Cazenove European
• Japan: Stephen Harker GLG Japan Core Alpha
• North America: James Findlay & Charles Park plus Anthony Kingsley, Rupert Brandt, Sarah-Jane Burns and Edward McMullan for Findlay Park North American Smaller Companies
• UK All Companies: James de Uphaugh, Chris Field, Rob Harris and Adam Parker Majedie Asset UK Focus fund
• Global Bond: Paul Thursby & Peter Geike-Cobb for Thames River Sterling Global Bond
• Global Equity: Andy Headley and Charles Richardson for Veritas Global Focus
• Specialist: Philip Gibbs for Jupiter Financial Opportunities
• Balanced Managed: Iain Stewart for Newton Balanced