GAM Investment’s Anthony Smouha has won the top prize at FE fundinfo’s 2022 Alpha Manager Awards, which recognise the best performing active fund managers from across the investment industry.
Smouha, who runs the GAM Star Credit Opportunities strategy, was named the Alpha Manager of the Year during a ceremony last night at Banking Hall in the City of London.
Charles Younes, research manager at FE Investments, said: “There’s no question that it has been a very testing two years for the investment industry. As we have moved from a Covid economy to a period of high interest rates and inflation, one set of challenging circumstances has been replaced by another and again - and fund managers are coming under enormous amounts of pressure to demonstrate their value.
“But throughout this, Anthony Smouha has guided his GAM fund through these difficult times and has consistently outperformed his sector and index benchmarks. A very worthy winner in a very competitive field, Anthony joins the most esteemed names within the industry, including last year’s winner Douglas Brodie and 2020’s joint winners Julian Fosh and Anthony Cross.”
Performance of fund vs sector and index over 10yrs
Source: FE Analytics
Smouha’s £620m GAM Star Credit Opportunities GBP fund sits in the top quartile of the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector over the three, five and 10 years to the end of April 2022 and is comfortably ahead of its Bloomberg Sterling Aggregate Corporate benchmark for each of these periods.
Over 10 years, the fund’s 118.1% total return is the highest of the 52 funds in the IA Sterling Strategic Bond sector with a long enough track record. While GAM Star Credit Opportunities GBP is one of the most volatile members of the peer group, it also has the sector’s best Sharpe ratio and information ratio, which are commonly used gauges of investors’ skill.
In addition to Best Alpha Manager 2022, the awards feature categories for equity and bond assets across the globe, responsible and sustainable investment, and rising stars through the Best New Alpha Manager award. The full list of the 2022 award winners can be seen in the table below.
The shortlist for each category was determined by identifying the highest scoring FE fundinfo Alpha Managers from the 2022 rebalance. A mix of quantitative and qualitative assessment was then applied to pick the highest performing from this shortlist.
