Milford wins fund manager of the year

Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year Milford Asset Management says it doesn’t want to be a “one hit wonder”.

Thursday, February 28th 2013, 10:00AM

by Niko Kloeten

Milford took out the top prize at last night’s Morningstar awards, beating Fisher Funds and last year’s winner OnePath for the prize.

It also won the KiwiSaver category, again over Fisher Funds and OnePath, while it was nominated for the domestic equities category won by Fisher Funds (AMP Capital Investors was the other nominee).

Tyndall Investment Management won the fixed interest category ahead of Russell Investments and Tower BondPlus, while OnePath took home the international equities prize ahead of AMP Capital and BT International.

"The winners in the New Zealand Morningstar Awards have all shown themselves to be first-class stewards of their investors' capital,” Morningstar Australasia Co-Head of Fund Research Chris Douglas said.

“The quality of their people, process, philosophy, and investment style are a testament to this, and continue to enable them to provide outstanding results for their investors.”

Milford managing director Anthony Quirk said the company was delighted to win both the overall award and the KiwiSaver category, which he said were very competitive.

Quirk said Milford didn’t want to be a “one-hit wonder” and despite winning the KiwiSaver award it still had a lot of things it could do to enhance its offering.

He wouldn’t say what those plans were but confirmed Milford was looking to expand its presence with financial advisers.

“We’ve made a recent appointment of Murray Harris who is well known to IFA groups; it’s a very important area for us. We’re very clear that we don’t pay trail commissions and we attract a certain sort of financial planner that’s comfortable with that,” he said.

“With Murray on board no doubt we can increase the marketing to those groups and also the support once they invest in those funds.”

Quirk said Milford would also be looking to expand in the wholesale market, albeit with a very selective approach.

“We have a targeted approach; we haven’t tried to be all things to all people.”

Niko Kloeten can be contacted at niko@goodreturns.co.nz

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