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, we launched 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 nominees in each of 10 categories, and gave retail investors the chance to tell us which ones were their favourite.

As an incentive, we offered 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.

The following winners and nominees for 2024 were:

A lot of work happened behind the scenes to get to this point. We would like to thank:

1. Our internal data team, which crunched the numbers to come up with performance statistics to support the whittling down process.
2. Our five experts represent some of the leading wealth managers invested in the sector, reviewed the data to whittle the selection process down to a manageable size.
3. A very big thank you to the sponsors, Cazenove Capital and Stonehage Fleming
4. And lastly to all the voters

Voting will start again in August 2025 for the next awards. Make sure you sign up as a QuotedData subscriber to be reminded to vote, and be in with a chance to win another £5000!

Please see our video of the prize giving in 2024:

Our 5 Judges:
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.