Metropolitan and partners scoop six awards at the Raging Bull Awards

Metropolitan, its offshore unit trust partner Aviva and white label partner Centaur scooped six awards at this year’s Raging Bull awards – the group’s best performance since the award’s inception.

Robert Walton, the MD of Metropolitan Asset Managers (MetAM) and Metropolitan Collective Investments (MetCI) says the awards are a coupe for the group for numerous reasons.

On the asset management side, the Metropolitan Industrial Fund won the sector category award (with an average 35% yield per annum over the past three years).

Craig Whittle, who currently manages the Metropolitan Industrial Fund describes the fund as a focussed, bottom up fund with the industrial index as its benchmark. He says even though the fund yielded strong returns it’s still well-positioned to further benefit from the infrastructure spend underway for the World Cup in 2010 and beyond. In addition, says Whittle, positions are also taken in smaller companies with good fundamentals which are typically not covered by the broker community. These positions are then exited when these shares appear on the radar screens of other fund managers.

On the unit trust side, Walton believes the awards also acknowledges the quality of white label funds after the independently-managed Centaur Flexible Fund (administered by MetCI) scooped the Best Domestic Allocation Flexible Fund (over 3 years) award.

Says Walton: “White labels are now an established and proven business concept and have been very successful for the group and for MetCI’s partners. MetCI currently has some R19bn under management with nearly 75% of that from the white labeling business which will remain an integral part of or long-term strategy.”

Metropolitan’s offshore partner Aviva scooped the “Best Offshore Management Company of the Year”. Walton says apart from this accolade, the Aviva Funds Global Convertibles Fund won the “Best Offshore Global Fixed Interest Bond Fund for the third time in a row and is an avatar for consistent returns. The Aviva Funds European Convergence Equity Fund won in the Best Offshore Europe Equity General Fund category

Looking ahead Walton anticipates a strong recovery later this year. He believes the market outlook is favourable and is relatively bullish on a recovery for the rest of the year – even though local equities have been under pressure in line with unfavourable global market conditions.