ING the big thing at awards

ING has once again dominated the Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year Awards held in Auckland last night.

Friday, March 10th 2006, 6:00AM

ING took out the top award, but also won the award in the multi-sector and property sectors. National Bank, which is now owned by ING won the fixed interest award.

Other winners last night included Fisher Funds – which took out the New Zealand shares award, AMP in international equities and Fund Managers Canterbury in the mortgage sector.

The awards are based on a combination of quantitative research and one-year performance to December 31.

ING chief investment officer Rebecca Thomas paid tribute to her team and noted that the team included a large number of people who held the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) qualification.

She made special mention of ING’s asset allocation specialist Philip Houghton-Brown, saying that the overall result and multi-sector win shows that tactical asset allocation and currency overlay pays.

Thomas also acknowledged the work of Shane Solly in the property sector. Solly recently left the firm to work for Goldman Sachs JB Were.

In a sign of changes going on in the market, National Bank’s Paul Drummond accepted the top award in the fixed interest sector, but noted that the fund was originally established by Southpac, has been managed by AMP Capital and last year moved to be under the management wing of ING.

Meanwhile AXA’s Gordon Noble-Campbell represented BNZ in the international shares section following AXA’s purchase of BNZ Investment Management.

Sector	Winner	Finalists
Fund Manager of the Year	ING	Asteron, Sovereign
Multi-sector	ING	Asteron, AXA
NZ Fixed interest	National Bank	Asteron, ING
Mortgages	Fund Managers Canterbury	Fund Managers Auckland, Fund Managers Otago
Property	ING	AMP, Sovereign
NZ Shares	Fisher Funds	AXA, ING
Intl Shares	AMP	BNZ, Sovereign