Here at QuotedData we spend a lot of time thinking of new ways to get the message across that the best investment companies can make the best long-term investments.

Every year, the industry hands out awards to the managers and trusts that it thinks are doing the best job for investors, but we thought – why not ask investors what they think? Hence, today, we are announcing the launch of the QuotedData Investors’ Choice Awards.

To keep things simple, we asked a panel of industry experts (see below) to whittle down a long list of funds into a shortlist of four nominees in each of 10 categories. From Monday morning, you will get the chance to tell us which of the nominees is your favourite.

The process of judging should not take too long for those of you that know these funds well, but for those that do not, there will be links to information on each trust.

As an incentive, we are offering a £5,000 prize to the lucky judge who gets closest to predicting the winners in each of the 10 categories. If there is more than one of these, the winner will be selected at random from all those that got closest.

Judging will open at 8am on Monday 30 September and close at 5pm on Sunday 17 November. The winners will be announced by the end of that month.

There is no charge to participate, but please only one entry per person and we are afraid that only UK residents will be eligible to win the prize.

The categories are fairly straightforward and are likely to align with many investors’ objectives:

• Best for long-term income
• Best for long-term capital growth
• Best for global
• Best for UK
• Best for country/regional
• Best for specialist equity
• Best for alternative assets
• Best for property
• Best large asset manager (five or more funds)
• Best boutique (five or fewer funds)

A lot of work has happened behind the scenes to get to this point. We would like to thank our internal data team, which crunched the numbers to come up with performance statistics to support the whittling down process.

Our five experts represent some of the leading wealth managers invested in the sector. A very big thank you is due to:

James Burns – Evelyn Partners, Partner

An expert in collective investment schemes, particularly investment companies, James heads up Evelyn Partners’ Managed Portfolio Service as well as leading the Multi Asset team which oversees the Evelyn Partners MM Global Investment Fund, the Defensive Growth Fund and the MM Endurance Balanced Fund.

James joined the firm in 1999 and started working on the investment trust desk in 2001. He also sits on the firm’s Asset Allocation Committee and the Collectives Investment Group.

Professional qualifications/memberships – Graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 1998 with an MA (Hons) and is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment (CISI).

Eleana Watts – Stonehage Fleming, Portfolio Manager

Eleana is a senior analyst within the Investment Strategy & Research team of Stonehage Fleming. Eleana works closely with client relationship managers to best serve their clients’ bespoke investment requests. She previously worked for Brown Shipley, and parent bank Quintet across roles in portfolio construction and management, in addition to research spanning asset classes with a focus on Alternatives. Prior to this she was a portfolio analyst for Artorius, having started her career at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Eleana holds an MSc in Economic and Financial Analysis from Manchester Metropolitan University. She is a CAIA Charterholder and has completed both the IMC and CFA ESG certificates.

James de Bunsen – Janus Henderson, Fund Manager
James de Bunsen is a Portfolio Manager on Janus Henderson Investors’ Multi-Asset Team, a position he has held since joining Henderson in 2013. In this role, James focuses on alternative asset classes and strategies. Prior to Henderson, he worked for multi-asset boutique Armstrong Investment Managers (AIM) from 2010, where he helped run a number of multi-asset strategies targeting real returns above inflation within clearly defined risk budgets. Before that, he spent five years at Insight Investment as part of the same multi-asset team that launched the first retail multi-asset fund in the UK and later formed AIM. At both Insight and AIM, this team won several performance awards from FT Pension & Investment, HFM Europe, and BarclayHedge, among others. Earlier in his career, he spent several years working as a journalist and editor at a variety of business magazines.

James received a degree in ancient history and archaeology from the University of Manchester. He holds the Investment Management Certificate (IMC) and the Chartered Financial Analyst designation. He has 19 of financial industry experience.

Charles Armstrong – Cazenove Capital, Portfolio Director
Joined Cazenove Capital Management in 2001 having started my career with Buchler Phillips, Corporate Recovery & Restructuring specialists. A Portfolio Director with responsibility for managing UK private client portfolios, private OEIC’s and Inflation-Plus mandates which also includes the Schroder Managed Wealth Portfolio Fund. A member of the Wealth Management Investment Committee, Research Committee and the Private Equity Committee. A Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment with 20 years’ investment experience

Ben Conway – Hawksmoor Investment, CIO
Graduated in 2002 from Trinity College, Cambridge with a degree in Economics.

He joined the graduate program of Deutsche Bank in London and specialised in Japanese equities having spent his gap year teaching English with Project Trust in rural Japan. He moved to Merrill Lynch in 2004, where he became a Director of Japanese Equities.

In 2008 Ben left the City and moved to Sydney to help start-up an energy consultancy. Ben returned to the UK, relocating to the South West and joining Hawksmoor in July 2010. He has worked on the Fund Management team since 2011 and been a co-manager of the Vanbrugh, Distribution and Global Opportunities Funds since January 2014. Ben is now Chief Investment Officer & Head of the Fund Management Team.