Congratulations to the winners of the Benchmark MPF of the Year Awards. It is an exceptional year to celebrate Benchmark Hong Kong 20th anniversary! This is also the year we co-organize the award with the most disruptive Sustainability and Qualitative analytic platform, BlueOnion, a sister company of organizer, WealthAsia Media.
GRAND TITLE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Grand Award Title | The Winner |
---|---|
Investment Manager of the Year | HSBC |
Sponsor of the Year | Sun Life Hong Kong |
Trustee of the Year | BCT Group |
Winners of the 2023 MPF Awards
The MPF Trustee Awards recognize that Trustees regulated by the MPFA have demonstrated excellence in discharging their fiduciary duties, creativity, and leadership in the following categories. The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.
- Risk Management Award
- Corporate Governance Award
- Employer Support Award
- Member Servicing Award
- Compliance Award
- Stewardship Award
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Risk Management | BCT Group (BCT Financial Limited and Bank Consortium Trust Co Ltd) | Best-in-Class |
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Corporate Governance | HSBC | Best Corporate Governance Awards |
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Employer Support | Manulife International Limited | BEST-IN-CLASS |
Employer Support | BCT Group (BCT Financial Limited and Bank Consortium Trust Co Ltd) | BEST-IN-CLASS |
Employer Support | Sun Life Hong Kong | OUTSTANDING ACHIEVER |
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Member Servicing | BCT Group (BCT Financial Limited and Bank Consortium Trust Co Ltd) | Best-in-Class |
Member Servicing | Sun Life Hong Kong | Outstanding Achiever |
Regrettably, there are no winners in this category
Regrettably, there are no winners in this category
The MPF Sponsor Awards recognize that MPF Sponsors who have demonstrated excellence in their product designs, fund manager selection, cost structuring, and engagement with the member public in the following categories. The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.
- Intermediary Award
- Intermediary Support Award
- Campaign of the Year
- Investor Education Award
- Social Media Engagement Award
- ESG Integration Award
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Intermediary | Sun Life Hong Kong | Outstanding Achiever |
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Intermediary Support | Sun Life Hong Kong | Best Intermediary Support Award |
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Campaign of the Year | Manulife International Limited | Best Campaign of the Year |
Campaign of the Year | HSBC | Outstanding Campaign Award |
Campaign of the Year | Sun Life Hong Kong | Outstanding Campaign Award |
Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|
Investor Education | HSBC | Best-in-Class |
Investor Education | Sun Life Hong Kong | Best-in-Class |
Investor Education | BCT Group (BCT Financial Limited and Bank Consortium Trust Co Ltd) | Best-in-Class |
Regrettably, there are no winners in this category
The Investment Manager Awards is designed to recognize underlying managers of MPF Schemes in various asset classes and strategies for delivering sustained, consistent outperformance on a risk-adjusted basis while maintaining excellence in Benchmark's pillars of Investment Approach, Performance & Risk, Portfolio Management, Stewardship, and Corporate Quality.
Winning Titles
The strategy with the highest final score in its peer group wins the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to Strategies within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class
Asset Class | Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|---|
Equity | China Equity | HSBC | Best-in-Class |
Equity | Global Equity | Regrettably, there are no winners in this category |
Asset Class | Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|---|
Fixed Income | Hong Kong Dollar Fixed Income | Regrettably, there are no winners in this category |
Asset Class | Category | Company | Award |
---|---|---|---|
Multi-Assets | Aggressive Mixed Assets (81% to 100% Equity) | Principal Hong Kong | Outstanding Achiever |
Multi-Assets | Balanced Mixed Assets (41% to 60% Equity) | Regrettably, there are no winners in this category | |
Multi-Assets | Conservative Mixed Assets (21% to 40% Equity) | Regrettably, there are no winners in this category | |
Multi-Assets | Default Investment Strategy – Age 65 Plus | Regrettably, there are no winners in this category | |
Multi-Assets | Growth Mixed Assets (61% to 80% Equity) | Principal Hong Kong | Best-in-Class |
Multi-Assets | Growth Mixed Assets (61% to 80% Equity) | HSBC | Outstanding Achiever |
Regrettably, there are no winners for this category
Regrettably, there are no winners for this category
Judging
In consultation with our panel of 70-80 buy-side jurors, consisting of mainly private and premier banking gatekeepers/fund selectors, family offices, and institutional investors, plus a handful of independent consultants and researchers – we’ve designed a scoring system with a questionnaire containing multiple options and binary answers. There are 3 levels of scores, the final score is a weighted combination of Levels I, II, and III:
Level I Score: Fund Questionnaire
Level II: Score: Juror Assessment
Level III Score: The Gatekeeper Forum
Overall Score = 10% (Level I) + 80% (Level II)+ 10% (Level III)
Level I Score: All participants are scored based on their selections of the options preset for each question in the Fund Questionnaire. The scores are also pre-defined for each option in each question along the five key pillars.
Level II Score: Jurors who have signed up/assigned to a particular peer group will score based on their experience with the fund house and team, and the overall Level I scores presented to them. Scoring at this level could be relatively subjective, as each juror has his/her selection priorities, often guided by their underlying needs. For example, a private banking gatekeeper would have a different priority on criteria selection versus a single-family office.
Level III Score: All participants are invited to join The Gatekeeper’s Forum to present their strategies to the jurors. This is a highly curated forum where only the PM, CIO, or Product Specialists are invited to meet the Senior Gatekeepers in person. During the 30 minute session, a panel of 6-8 jurors will ask in-depth questions along the five key pillars for further understanding of the team practices. Jurors will score based on their satisfaction with the information received during the session.
Other Rules
Submitting Materials for Multiple Strategies – Separate groups of jurors will evaluate different product types, so please make sure there is one submission per strategy. DO NOT send one submission to represent different strategies. Please submit separate entries for each strategy, with the exception of Pillar 5-Corporate Strength.
Merging Categories To ensure the quality of the awards, categories with less than three funds participating may be merged to a larger category of the same kind without prior notice
Eligibility
Although this program assesses investment strategies rather than funds, we ask for factsheets and other information related to the oldest share class of a flagship fund so that all candidates can be measured by the same metrics. The flagship strategy must:
- have a minimum 3 years track record
- disclose the most recent full holdings
- provide a prospectus or fact sheet
The underlying strategy submitted does not have to be an authorized fund in Hong Kong. It can be a UCITS, SICAV, etc…
BENCHMARK’s top Mandatory Provident Funds (MPF) are purely based on long-term performance. This award is designed to help scheme members identify the best risk-adjusted returns among MPF schemes’ constituent funds.
Name | BENCHMARK Category | Award Winners |
---|---|---|
AIA MPF - PVC Asian Equity | Asia-Pacific ex-Japan Equity | Best-in-Class |
BOC-Pru Easy Choice Ch Eq HKD | China Equity | Best-in-Class |
Principal 800 Age 65 Plus N | Default Investment Strategy - Age 65 Plus Fund | Best-in-Class |
Principal Smart Plan-Core Accumulation | Default Investment Strategy - Core Accumulation Fd | Best-in-Class |
AIA MPF - PVC European Equity | Europe Equity | Best-in-Class |
AIA MPF - PVC Green | Global Equity | Best-in-Class |
BOC-Pru Easy Choice Bond | Global Fixed Income | Best-in-Class |
AIA MPF - PVC Greater China Equity | Greater China Equity | Best-in-Class |
Principal Smart Plan-Guaranteed | Guaranteed Fund | Best-in-Class |
AIA MPF - PVC Guaranteed Portfolio | Guaranteed Fund | Outstanding Achiever |
Manulife GS MPF Interest | Guaranteed Fund | Outstanding Achiever |
BOC-Pru Easy Choice HK Eq | Hong Kong Equity | Best-in-Class |
Principal Smart Plan-Hang Seng Index Tra | Hong Kong Equity (Index Tracking) | Best-in-Class |
Fidelity RMT-Hong Kong Bond | Hong Kong Fixed Income | Best-in-Class |
BOC-Pru Easy Choice Stable | Lifestyle - (>20-40% Equity) | Best-in-Class |
BOC-Pru Easy Choice Bal | Lifestyle - (>40-60% Equity) | Best-in-Class |
Allianz Stable Growth Fund - T | Lifestyle - (>40-60% Equity) | Outstanding Achiever |
HSBC MPF-ST Plus-Balanced | Lifestyle - (>60-80% Equity) | Best-in-Class |
Hang Seng MPF-ST Plus-Balanced | Lifestyle - (>60-80% Equity) | Best-in-Class |
Allianz Balanced Fund - B | Lifestyle - (>60-80% Equity) | Outstanding Achiever |
Allianz Growth Fund - T | Lifestyle - (>80-100% Equity) | Best-in-Class |
BCOM MPF Conservative Fund | MPF Conservative Fund | Best-in-Class |
BEA (IS) MPF Conservative | MPF Conservative Fund | Outstanding Achiever |
BEA (MTS) Conservative | MPF Conservative Fund | Outstanding Achiever |
BCT (Pro) Flexi Mixed Asset Fund | Other Flexible Mixed Assets | Best-in-Class |
Manulife GS MPF Pacific Asia Eq | Pacific Basin ex-Japan Equity | Best-in-Class |
Manulife GS MPF RMB Bond Fund | RMB Fixed Income | Best-in-Class |
Manulife GS MPF 2030 Retirement | Target Maturity 2030 | Best-in-Class |
Manulife GS MPF 2035 Retirement | Target Maturity 2035 | Best-in-Class |
Manulife GS MPF 2040 Retirement | Target Maturity 2040 | Best-in-Class |
Hang Seng MPF-ST Plus-North America Eq | US Equity | Best-in-Class |
HSBC MPF-ST Plus-North America Equity | US Equity | Best-in-Class |
AIA MPF - PVC North American Equity | US Equity | Outstanding Achiever |
Eligibility
For eligibility, the fund must have the following characteristics:
- Track Record >= 5 Years (>= 3 Years for DIS)
- Fund Size >= 50 Mil USD
Judging
1 Year Annualized Return (HKD) 10%
3 Year Annualized Return (HKD) 20%
5 Year Monthly I.R.R. (HKD) 30%
10 Year Monthly I.R.R. (HKD) 40%
Overall Score = 30% (Annualized Return) + 70% (Monthly I.R.R.)
The MPF Trustee Awards recognize that Trustees regulated by the MPFA have demonstrated excellence in discharging their fiduciary duties, creativity, and leadership in the following categories. The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.
- Compliance Award
- Risk Management Award
- Corporate Governance Award
- Stewardship Award
- Employer Support
- Member Servicing
- Human Capital Development Award
The “Compliance” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees who go beyond the most minimal regulatory requirement and proactively build an effective defense system for internal control that prepares the organization to face unanticipated market events and disruptive trends. The critical criteria in this category include the following. Please explain:
How your firm’s compliance addresses the various business functions:
- Process and rationale of integrating compliance into business functions
- Segregation between Trustee's and Sponsor's duties and responsibilities
- New product due diligence, onboarding, monitoring, and development
- Meeting international ESG demand and applying global normative assessment
- Product and other training for intermediaries
- IT and technology framework, including data collection, data privacy, data processing
the role and responsibility of the CCO - The transparency between the business owners, process owners, and audit the lines of defense
The “Risk Management” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees who have best-in-class risk control infrastructures, practices, and outcomes. Please demonstrate your firm’s foresight, vision, and accomplishments on the following:
The submission criteria include qualities below:
- Effective appointment, termination, and oversight of Service Providers for services delegated
- Explicit policies covering product responsibilities, customer data privacy, customer satisfaction measurement
- Integration of risk management into key functions, from the front to the back offices, for greater competitiveness and operational safety and efficiency
- Conflict management between outsourced vendors and the Trustee within the same financial group
- Employing digital innovation while mitigating concerns derived from cyber-attacks
- Protection of data privacy and the vulnerabilities that emerged from automation
- Digitization and global expansion of your firm’s digital ecosystems
- Governance protocol for decision-making processes
The “Corporate Governance” category aims to identify best practice MPF Trustees with a robust governance framework, infrastructure, and an operating model. The process examines the critical functions of the board’s role, responsibility and compensation, risk culture, people, and talents, processes, and technologies while maintaining a diverse board of directors.
The submission includes the qualities below:
- The risk management and culture of your organization
- Senior executives’ code of ethics, audit committee independence, Chairman, CEO Board separation, board diversity policy, etc…
- The Board Diversity Policy and your firm’s commitment to a diverse board
- Relevant committees and their policies and practices
- Your firm’s principles for managing both internal and external stakeholders’ interests
- Your CRO and CCO’s reporting protocol
This award highlights the responsibilities that MPF trustees, as asset owners, have in helping to shape the world we live in.” This award is given to the Trustees that embrace Responsible Investing and practice Active Ownership and integrate ESG into their ownership policies and practices while driving positive real-world goals.
Apart from illustrating their collaborative engagement initiatives with the underlying investment managers, they prioritize outcomes at the society/economy-wide scales, such as addressing climate change and corruption, rather than purely focusing on pure risks and returns of the holdings in the portfolio.
Judges will be looking for qualities in:
- the foundation of the practical stewardship principles and sustainability issues identification
- ongoing development and implementation of the responsible investment strategies and policies
- monitoring and assessment techniques of the investment managers and investee companies
- the collaboration goals and engagement principles with the investment managers
- how voting rights are exercised by the investment managers
- how ESG is promoted as long-term value creation
- level of transparency, disclosure, and reporting
Multiple funds of the underlying investment managers will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.
*BlueOnion is Benchmark's disruptive fund research platform hosting over 180,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score over 65,000 funds in 14 countries.
This Award recognizes an in-house team of an MPF Trustee that has demonstrated achievements in the following Service Levels and achievements:
The submission criteria include qualities below:
- Online Support: Whether the provider offers a streamlined onboarding process for new employee enrollment, whether forms are easily accessible, switching of funds is enabled, and the submission process is well organized through website and app access.
- Service Pledges: Please describe your service pledge to the employer, describing your service level, charges, administrative undertakings, updates on regulatory changes, etc. Notes will be compared with the MPFA's Trustee Service Comparative Platform.
- Communication and Reporting: Whether the portal/statement provides an interactive portfolio overview, performance, and risk figures accompanied by the company’s commentaries and messages, and keeping the employers abreast of new legislation and regulations.
- Measuring Success: What are the key indicators used to measure client satisfaction, what mechanisms are used for collecting and measuring end customers’ feedback, what has been the attrition rate, and whether this effort demonstrates impressive growth for assets under administration
This Award recognizes an in-house team of an MPF Trustee that has demonstrated achievements in the following Service Levels and achievements:
The submission criteria include qualities below:
- Online Support: Whether the provider offers a streamlined onboarding process for new employee enrollment, whether forms are easily accessible, switching of funds is enabled, and the submission process is well organized through website and app access.
- Putting the Members First: Whether the process puts its end customers’ needs first and whether it has a structured approval process to ensure end customers’ satisfaction through tracking and improvements of end-customer satisfaction rates, customer retention rates, response time, and ability to provide accurate, precise and usable information.
- Empowerment of Members: Whether there are tools to enable customers to do things themselves and become more engaged in the process – tracking their existing portfolio holdings, researching new investment opportunities, and comparing with other investments outside of the company’s.
- Communication and Reporting: The portal/statement provides an interactive portfolio overview, performance, and risk figures accompanied by the company’s commentaries and messages.
- Measuring Success: What are the key indicators used to measure client satisfaction, and what are the mechanisms for collecting and measuring end customers’ feedback
- ECA Effort: Whether the team and process are robust enough to provide timely service to clients who actively utilize the benefits of ECA to manage their retirement account, and whether there is a mechanism to detect unusual and unethical behavior.
- DIS Implementation: What are the proactive initiatives taken to educate the members on the implementation of DIS and whether a fair approach has been taken to inform the members of its pros and cons, and what factors they should consider when contemplating such strategies.
We are looking for a company that adopts best practices in recruiting, managing, and retaining the talent pool to meet the Social responsibilities in the realm of ESG. Companies that care deeply about their employees' health, safety, and wellness and have cultivated a healthy workplace should consider entering this category.
Judges will be looking for qualities in:
- Retention: Ability to attract, retain, and develop human capital, as well as the exposure to risks of increased costs associated with high employee turnover or reduced productivity resulting from poor morale.
- Engagement: Formal employee engagement channels, broad-based professional development, training opportunities, and implementing flexible work hours.
- Benefits: Comprehensive compensation and benefits packages provide annual profit-sharing bonuses, regularly giving employees a substantial and concrete stake in the company’s success. It also offers incentives in short-term activities and benefits aligned to customers’ long-term interests and gifts.
- Culture: The company empowers professional and personal growth by demonstrating strong leadership, communication, culture, and corporate social responsibility.
- Training and Development: Explicit policies and execution that covers internal promotion, Supplier ESG Training, Career Development Policy, and Average # of training hours
- Diversity and Inclusion: Best practice policies to broaden the pool of talent to include all genders, races, and ages.
The MPF Sponsor Awards recognize that MPF Sponsors who have demonstrated excellence in their product designs, fund manager selection, cost structuring, and engagement with the member public in the following categories. The firm with the highest score in the respective category will win the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to providers within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class.
- Product Due Diligence Award
- ESG Integration Award
- Impact Initiative Award
- Investor Education Award
- Intermediary Award
- Intermediary Support Award
- Campaign of the Year
- Social Media Engagement Award
For this category, we are looking at the Sponsor's responsibilities over Product quality and safety including the investment due diligence with a comprehensive fund manager selection process, risk management system, and methodologies for screening investment products. Considerations include the reviews of managers' investment process, performance and risks, portfolio management, stewardship, and corporate quality.
The submission includes the following criteria:
- Screening Process: A comprehensive risk management system and methodologies used for investment screening. Senior management participation from business units, legal, compliance, risk management, and operations on new product offerings, vetting, and ongoing monitoring.
- Product Safety and Quality: The Sponsor has undergone a stringent process to find the best underlying managers that are the least costly, complex, or risky to achieve its objectives.
- Monitoring: Whether there is a rigorous governance process to monitor the managers' deterioration in quantitative and qualitative management along their investment process, performance and risks, portfolio management, stewardship, and corporate quality.
- Investment/Divestment Process: A clear guideline and action is taken to divest away from an underlying manager whether it is a breach of mandate, underperformance on risk or return thresholds, manager's failure to comply with necessary engagement and disclosure requirement
- ESG Integration: Whether there is a process and guideline to examine investment manager's incorporation of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into investment decisions and its commitment to transparency and constructive engagement with investors.
The ESG Integration Award recognizes investment management companies that demonstrate commitments to integrate ESG into their investment decision-making throughout the investment process for the entire suites of their products, investment activities and reinforces ESG's role in Long-Term Value Creation.
Judges will be looking for qualities in:
- The systematic approach: innovative approaches to applying environmental, social, and governance (ESG) analysis to the funds being managed across the board, despite the sectors, countries, and asset classes
- The team buy-in and implementation: how multiple teams come to a consensus for the performance across the board
- Disclosure of policies and procedures for integrating ESG information and metrics into the investment process communicated to investee companies
- Execution of resources, constraints, and timeline management
- The key learnings from this approach measure outcomes
Multiple funds of the underlying managers will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.
*BlueOnion is Benchmark's disruptive fund research platform hosting over 180,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score over 65,000 funds in 14 countries.
The impact initiatives measure the MPF's sponsor selection of underlying managers' ability or index to create positive social or/and environmental value. They also have material exposure to businesses that address social or/and environmental challenges through their products and services. It should also prove that their investments are aligned with one or more UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Key metrics include:
- your competitive proposition in the impact investment space
- the substantial impact, both negative and positive, and/or the progress towards achieving those goals
- the scale of the investments vs. the impact terms created
- how the impact contributes to society/economy-wide solutions
- the uniqueness of the project that was set out to solve issues not addressed before the
- buy-ins of all stakeholders with clearly defined KPIs
This award aims to identify a company’s best strategy for improving investor knowledge and relations. Judges will be looking for providers with best-in-class characteristics in the following areas. Please describe your efforts and accomplishments in:
Key metrics include:
- Key Initiatives: What are the programs/initiatives used to educate and inform the public, and do they demonstrate ongoing leadership in the MPF industry, integrating best performing managers and analyst teams, advocating employee freedom of choice, etc.
- Impartiality: Whether the information offered is objective and balanced, and whether it displays a fair amount of discussion on potential risks and is not designed to push and promote the company’s products merely?
- Sales Support: Whether there is a client support infrastructure to help advisors receive updates on educational materials that enhance ethical selling and advice
- Education: The company strives to ensure that consumers acquire a general understanding of core financial concepts, the risks and returns associated with different types of financial assets, and some understanding of their risk tolerance.
- Commitment: The organization demonstrates a commitment to consumers as lifelong learners, with programs that consider the increased complexity of markets and financial products and undergo a regular assessment of program effectiveness.
The Intermediary Awards recognize MPF intermediaries who excel in product knowledge, technological capabilities, networking, and marketing skills. If your firm is versatile, responsive, and meets impeccable regulatory requirements, while upholding ethics and integrity at the highest standards, you should consider entering.
Key metrics include:
- Major customer segments you work with and how you identify customers’ needs.
- How you conduct servicing touch-points in acquiring new customers, managing complaints, handle ongoing servicing, and implementing policies to meet regulatory compliance.
- Approach to people management including staff recruitment, formal qualifications, ongoing learning and development, retention, and promotions.
- Policies on staff engagement, staff turnover and policies in undertaking professional development.
- The company’s contribution to the MPF industry, your customers and philanthropic support to the community.
We ask contesting Sponsors to demonstrate their strength of service and support to the MPF Intermediaries, both internal and external, based on the following key indicators:
Key metrics include:
- Satisfaction – the alignment between agent/client experience and the ongoing monitoring of satisfaction level. How do you know your customers are happy or unhappy with the Intermediary, and what’s the next step?
- Engagement – your strategies, roadmaps, and indicators for ‘high-touch customer engagement with your intermediaries’ service mapping.
- Process – your level of service, including your people, cross-functional communication, and a measurement component to increase intermediary loyalty.
- Technology – how is technology being used to enhance client insights to assist your Intermediaries, such as sharing the usage of big data, AI, or data warehousing to optimize the client experience and journey?
- Business Results – your process and strategies have given you proven results such as better financial returns, member retention, etc.
- Advocacy – how are your strategies creating a more positive brand attitude that shows in your NPS or other metrics.
This is about a specific campaign launched during the past 12 months between July 2020 and June 2021. We are looking for the most memorable campaign with powerful, meaningful, and inspirational messages that are not commoditized or focused on pricing. The campaign must also deliver on what it promises and should be ethical, relevant, and inclusive. Judging will be along with the merits of the following:
Key metrics include:
- What is the story behind the campaign?
- Whether it is a product campaign, a re-branding exercise, or a campaign for a specific objective?
- What is the significant impact of the story, and did you accomplish that mission?
References will also be made from the Benchmark annual MPF survey with findings through social listening and surveys.
The Investment Manager Awards is designed to recognize underlying managers of MPF Schemes in various asset classes and strategies for delivering sustained, consistent outperformance on a risk-adjusted basis while maintaining excellence in Benchmark's pillars. Benchmark and the buy-side community believe that investment strategies are best evaluated holistically rather than over-emphasizing past returns and risk metrics. In that light, our assessment is based on multiple facets of portfolio and risk management, and corporate strength. We see these facets as interlocking pieces forming a whole picture. Benchmark's five pillars are Investment Approach, Performance & Risk, Portfolio Management, Stewardship, and Corporate Quality.
Winning Titles
The strategy with the highest final score in its peer group wins the Best-in-Class award. Up to two Outstanding Achiever awards will be given to Strategies within a 5% margin below the Best-in-Class
Although this program assesses investment strategies rather than funds, we ask for factsheets and other information related to the oldest share class of a flagship fund so that all candidates can be measured by the same metrics. The flagship strategy must:
- have a minimum 3 years track record
- disclose the most recent full holdings
- provide a prospectus or fact sheet
The underlying strategy submitted does not have to be an authorized fund in Hong Kong. It can be a UCITS, SICAV, etc…
In consultation with our panel of 70-80 buy-side jurors, consisting of mainly private and premier banking gatekeepers/fund selectors, family offices, and institutional investors, plus a handful of independent consultants and researchers – we’ve designed a scoring system with a questionnaire containing multiple options and binary answers. There are 3 levels of scores, the final score is a weighted combination of Levels I, II, and III:
Level I Score: Fund Questionnaire
Level II: Score: Juror Assessment
Level III Score: The Gatekeeper Forum
Overall Score = 60% (Level I) + 30% (Level II)+ 10% (Level III)
Level I Score: All participants are scored based on their selections of the options preset for each question in the Fund Questionnaire. The scores are also pre-defined for each option in each question along the five key pillars.
Level II Score: Jurors who have signed up/assigned to a particular peer group will score based on their experience with the fund house and team, and the overall Level I scores presented to them. Scoring at this level could be relatively subjective, as each juror has his/her selection priorities, often guided by their underlying needs. For example, a private banking gatekeeper would have a different priority on criteria selection versus a single-family office.
Level III Score: All participants are invited to join The Gatekeeper’s Forum to present their strategies to the jurors. This is a highly curated forum where only the PM, CIO, or Product Specialists are invited to meet the Senior Gatekeepers in person. During the 30 minute session, a panel of 6-8 jurors will ask in-depth questions along the five key pillars for further understanding of the team practices. Jurors will score based on their satisfaction with the information received during the session.
Other Rules
Submitting Materials for Multiple Strategies – Separate groups of jurors will evaluate different product types, so please make sure there is one submission per strategy. DO NOT send one submission to represent different strategies. Please submit separate entries for each strategy, with the exception of Pillar 5-Corporate Strength.
Merging Categories To ensure the quality of the awards, categories with less than three funds participating may be merged to a larger category of the same kind without prior notice
- Asia Equity
- Asia Pacific Equity
- China Equity
- Europe Equity
- Global Equity
- Greater China Equity
- Hong Kong Equity
- Japan Equity
- United States Equity
- Sector Equity
- Asia Fixed Income
- Asia Pacific Fixed Income
- Global Fixed Income
- Hong Kong Dollar Fixed Income
- RMB Fixed Income
- Aggressive Mixed Assets (81% to 100% Equity)
- Growth Mixed Assets (61% to 80% Equity)
- Balanced Mixed Assets (41% to 60% Equity)
- Conservative Mixed Assets ( 21% to 40% Equity)
- Uncategorized Mixed Assets
- Default Investment Strategy – Core Accumulation
- Default Investment Strategy – Age 65 Plus
The ESG Integration Award recognizes investment management companies that demonstrate commitments to integrate ESG into their investment decision-making throughout the investment process for the entire suites of their products, investment activities and reinforces ESG's role in Long-Term Value Creation.
Judges will be looking for qualities in:
- the systematic approach: innovative approaches to applying environmental, social, and governance (ESG) analysis to the funds being managed across the board, despite the sectors, countries, and asset classes
- the team buy-in and implementation: how multiple teams come to a consensus for the performance across the board
- disclosure: disclosed policies and procedures for integrating ESGinformation and metrics into the investment process communicated to investee companies
- execution: resources, constraints, and timeline management
- outcomes: How are results measured the key learnings from this approach
Multiple funds of the candidates will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.
*BlueOnion is Benchmark's disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.
This award recognizes fund houses putting the welfare of the beneficiaries at the forefront. This award is given to the fund houses that embrace Responsible Investing and practice Active Ownership and integrate ESG into their ownership policies and practices while driving positive real-world goals. Apart from illustrating their collaborative engagement initiatives with the investees, they prioritize outcomes at the society/economy-wide scales, such as addressing climate change and corruption, rather than purely focusing on pure risks and returns of the holdings in the portfolio.
Judges will be looking for qualities in:
- the foundation of the practical stewardship principles
- ongoing development and implementation of the stewardship policies
- monitoring and assessment techniques of investee companies
- the collaboration goals and engagement principles with investee companies and investors
- how voting rights are exercised
- how ESG is promoted as long-term value creation
- level of transparency, disclosure, and reporting
Multiple funds of the candidates will be drawn randomly from BlueOnion* to demonstrate the walking the talks of the fund houses’ ESG, GC, and Temperature performances against their peers.
*BlueOnion is Benchmark's disruptive fund research platform hosting over 290,000 funds with sustainability data, including ESG, Global Compact (GC), and Temperature Score in 67 countries.
Our honorable Jurors for 2023
KEY DATES
Submission Activities: | Hong Kong & Singapore | Taiwan |
---|---|---|
Entry Open: | September 13, 2023 | Click Here |
Early Bird Close: | October 4, 2023 | |
Entry Close: | October 11, 2023 | |
Submission Period: | September 27 - October 27, 2023 | |
Judging Period | October 20 - November 10, 2023 | |
The Gatekeeper Forum: | November 7 - November 9, 2023 | |
Results Announcement: | November 28, 2023 | |
Awards Ceremony: | August 28, 2024 |
Flat Fee Per Entry | |
Early Bird Offer | 10% Off |
Multi-entry Discount For 4th entry or above | 5% Off |
Multi-Country Discount For Every Multi-Country Entry | 5% Off |
Complimentary with Each Entry (House awards entries only) | See Sample |
The Gatekeeper Forum is a sub-set of the judging process with three to five jurors holding a two-way conversation with the manager of a contesting strategy. The forum allows the shortlisted contestants’ CIO or Portfolio Manager to showcase how they're running a profitable strategy and respond to technical questions raised by the gatekeepers. The Forum is a highly curated platform that connects both the buy and sell side of funds and empowers gatekeepers from Private Banks, Institutions, Foundations, and Single and Multi-Family Offices to look under the hood before they invest. Another purpose of the Gatekeeper Forum is to promote investment clarity and transparency. The interaction between senior fund house representatives and our jurors can reveal the underlying idea generation and philosophy of the contesting strategies from multiple perspectives, particularly from a qualitative and ESG perspective. Judges will be presented with independent financial and sustainability performances provided by Morningstar and BlueOnion together with narratives of the challenges provided by the shortlisted candidates. Only invited jurors can select the sessions they are interested in. The forum was held virtually last year, with managers and jurors joining from all over the world and this year the forum will be conducted in a hybrid format.