BNZ crowned king - again

The Bank of New Zealand has scooped the top place in FundSource's annual Fund Manager of the Year Awards for the second consecutive year. Besides picking up the overall gong, BNZ also won top place in the prestigious international shares category.

Bank of New Zealand Investment and Insurance general manager Rodger Murphy attributes the bank's success to a variety of factors including changes which were made several years ago and having a stable team.

He says BNZ has had probably one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the industry recently and that has been a major factor in the bank's success.

It's also a point FundSource picks up on: "BNZ Investment Management have strong stability with their key investment staff, enabling accumulation of high levels of team and industry experience."

The runner up for the overall award was Guardian Trust Funds Management.

Managing director Anthony Quirk says making the list of finalists showed that the changes the group has implemented over the past two years are starting to pay off.

In third place was AMP Henderson Global Investors. Acting managing director Andrew Brockway says that it's been quite a tough year and the main changes in the group have been a rearranged of the teams managing money.

He says much of the activity for the group this year has been in the property and private capital area (which are outside the scope of FundSource's Awards).

Fisher Funds Management picked up top place in the New Zealand shares section of the Awards, while AXA, with its Australasian Selected Equities Fund was runner up.

Other sector winners this year include:

• AXA - Cash and diversified balanced fund
• Guardian Trust Funds Management - Mortgages
• ING - Property
• National Bank - International and New Zealand fixed interest
• SBS - Diversifed defensive fund
• NZ Funds Management - Diversified growth