Fund company wins important tech recognition

Morningstar held its big awards gala Wednesday night and a change-maker in the mutual fund business took home some of the hardware

Invesco Canada took home Morningstar’s Award for Best Use of Technology Wednesday night just one of more than 40 companies and individuals recognized for their good work in 2015.
 
Invesco’s mutual fund business has been making a lot of waves recently with the introduction of its platform-traded funds which provide fee-based advisors with active management at a lower cost.
 
"I am immensely proud of what the Invesco team has achieved in developing PTFs," said Peter Intraligi, President of Invesco Canada. "This award is a testament to their many months of hard work and relentless focus on delivering a superior investment experience for our clients."
 
Patent-pending, the PTF platform is being rolled out across Canada and soon will be available to advisors coast-to-coast with other fund companies included in the offerings as a result of its partnership with Aequitas Innovations.
 
WP recently wrote about this technology being a potential game changer for mutual fund companies. 
 
"In developing PTFs, we deconstructed the delivery of active money management to create a process that is far more efficient," said Intraligi. "This isn't just about lower cost; we've solved a number of challenges that are unique to fee-based investing. It's a real breakthrough."
 
Another big Morningstar award went to Jim Hall and Vijay Viswanathan of Mawer Investment Management who won the Domestic Equity Fund Manager of the Year.
 
"Managers Jim Hall and Vijay Viswanathan benefited from their historical aversion to energy and basic materials stocks," Christopher Davis, director of manager research for Morningstar Canada, said. "Their focus on high-quality investments and big winners like Constellation Software kept their fund comfortably in the black as most of their peers suffered losses. Their long-term risk-adjusted performance is extraordinary."
 
The other big winner in the equity field was Richard Jenkins of CI Investments who took home the award for Foreign Equity Fund Manager of the Year. The portfolio manager is anything but a closet indexer, according to Morningstar. 
 
"Richard Jenkins pushed ahead of the pack by investing differently than the competition," Davis said. "Picks like brick maker Weinerberger and packaging producer Gerresheimer don't appear in many rival portfolios. The success of names like these led to terrific performance this year, and more importantly, over the long term."
 
 

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