Throughout the judging process that underpins the Honours for Excellence in Investment, the OBSR research team focuses on what they believe really matters to retail investors and their advisers. But what exactly is that?

OBSR believes they are looking for excellence in investment – that is, an outstanding return, an expected outcome and for the fund manager and the group behind that manager to show as much loyalty to their investors as is, in the opposite direction, often expected as a matter of right.
    
The Honours winners will thus have demonstrated the ability to generate outstanding long-term returns when assessed both in absolute terms and relative to their peers. What is more, these returns will have been expectable – that is, achieved consistently, with a risk profile that was clearly established from the start – and on significant sums of money, thereby demonstrating that a wide range of retail investors have truly benefited from their skills.

In addition to returns and expectations, the third crucial ingredient is loyalty to the market, as measured by longevity and tenure. Since people are investing for the long term, they will want fund managers who will be loyal, which OBSR believes means at least 10 years in the same company doing the same job with the same fund.

This strong stance towards managerial longevity also has the value of acknowledging the contribution of the fund groups that go the extra mile to provide the right kind of environment and support for their employees. Good managers do not stick around at companies that constrain, reward too little or promote them to unsuitable positions.

In all of this, OBSR has ignored individual sectors, seeking purely to identify the exceptional investors – the generationally outstanding fund managers and groups operating in and for the retail market. As such, a vital consideration has been whether the retail market place has been able to benefit from their expertise because it is only then that everybody – fund manager, firm and, most importantly, client – can truly benefit.

In everything it does in its day-to-day business, OBSR is looking to help people – and therefore the long-term savings market – by encouraging the industry to give long-term advice. As such, a final requirement of the Honours is that all individual winners must have achieved a rating from OBSR of A or above.