Baillie Gifford has won the top prize at the FTA Investment 100 Club for the third consecutive year, with Liontrust taking home the award for best Small to Medium-sized Investment Group and Legal & General IM awarded best Passive Group.
The awards assess funds and asset managers based on short- and long-term outperformance as well as a set of strict screening factors. The 100 Club was then scrutinised by a panel of judges, who this year felt Baillie Gifford's numbers were simply "too good to ignore" in the Large Investment Group category.
The Edinburgh-based fund house also took home two category awards: its EM Leading Companies offering triumphed in the Global Emerging Markets category, while its Japanese Smaller Companies fund was selected from the five members in the Japan category.
Liontrust also came out on top in two other categories: its Sustainable Future Absolute Growth fund won out in the Mixed Asset grouping, and its UK Smaller Companies fund topped the pile in that category of the same name. The judges said the firm had "gone from strength to strength" in recent years.
LGIM, meanwhile, was commended for its all-round strength in passive products, not least in more esoteric areas such as emerging market debt.
Other major winners this year included Mirabaud, whose Equities Global Focus fund was praised for "doing something different" among a packed field of global equity funds, and Loomis Sayles, the Natixis boutique whose US Equity Leaders fund has become a fund buyer favourite in that asset class.
There were also wins for investment trusts: Fidelity Asian Values won in the Asian equity space, manager Nitin Bajaj being commended for using the trust structure to invest in less liquid names. And, at a tough time for physical property, Gravis emerged victorious by doing something different with its GCP Student Living closed-ended offering.
Elsewhere there were also wins for firms including Montanaro, Axa IM, and Premier, whose Multi-Asset Distribution fund made a repeat appearance in the Mixed Asset Income category and was singled out by the judges this time.
The full list of winners can be found here.
