Feri Fund Awards 2008 conferred

• Feri Rating & Research and n-tv honour best investment funds in 11 equity and bond categories
• Special “Fund Innovations” prize awarded to Lyxor ETF FTSE RAFI Europe

Bad Homburg, 29 November 2007 – The Feri Rating & Research rating agency and the news broadcaster n-tv awarded the Feri Fund Awards yesterday for the first time. The best investment funds in eleven share and bond categories, as well as the best investment fund innovation, were honoured during the festive ceremony that was held at Bad Homburg Castle with 200 guests from the world of business and finance in attendance.  

“The market response to the Feri Fund Awards, which are the first to evaluate investment funds according to quantitative and qualitative criteria, has been extremely positive,” explains Dr. Tobias Schmidt, who is responsible for the Fund Awards at Feri Rating & Research. “Not only the nominees have gained something through the investment fund prize, but above all the investors as well.”

“Admittedly, investors do have access to endless information via the internet and other media,” adds Jochen Dietrich, editor-in-chief of n-tv’s business magazine division. “However, it is not always possible to assess the quality and reliability of that information.” He said that investment fund evaluations, such as fund ratings and especially the Feri Fund Awards, offer a good means of orientation in the investment jungle, particularly for private investors.

A Feri Fund Award 2008 has been awarded to each of the following investment funds:

The selection of these outstanding investment funds was based on a two-stage evaluation process. In addition to the current Feri Rating, the selection criterion for nomination for the Feri Fund Awards (Stage 1) was fund performance during the past twelve months. Altogether, five investment funds were nominated for each Feri Fund Awards category respectively; this means that 37 different investment fund companies attained a coveted place among the Top Five (cf. list in attachment). After quantitative evaluation, a qualitative analysis was performed on the nominated funds (Stage 2). Among other things, facts relating to the fund managers and the investment process were incorporated into the evaluation. Those data were collected by means of a questionnaire and evaluated according to a standardised catalogue of criteria. The overall evaluation is the result of the weighted sum of all quantitative and qualitative evaluation components. The investment fund with the highest score was selected as the best investment fund in its category.

For example, the Feri Fund Award in the “Shares Asian Pacific ex Japan” category was awarded to the Templeton Asian Growth Fund. Among other things, this investment fund achieved the best score in the quantitative as well as the qualitative evaluation because of the many years of professional experience and the outstanding knowledge of the industry of its manager, Mark Mobius. By contrast, in the “Shares Japan” category the winner was the Morgan Stanley-Japanese Value Equity Fund: its systematically fundamental approach concentrates on undervalued securities in the Japanese market. This investment fund managed to move to the top of its peer group and thus to win the award primarily because of its good qualitative evaluation.

In order to be able to participate in the selection process for conferment of the Feri Fund Awards, the funds in question have to fulfil the following selection criteria: in addition to a minimum volume, the investment funds have to have a Feri Fonds Rating, be accessible for private investors and be registered in Germany.

The five investment funds that were nominated for the special prize in the “Fund Innovations” category were selected by an independent panel of experts. The panel members are: Udo Behrenwaldt, who serves as a consultant for various German companies, Ulrich Hocker from DSW, Prof. Dr. Alexander Kempf from the University of Cologne, Dr. Peter Spinnler from PS Consult and Dr. Min Sun from Feri Institutional Advisors. The experts honour the most innovative investment fund idea of the year with this prize: this year it was conferred on the Lyxor ETF FTSE RAFI Europe fund. The jury’s reasoning: the concept of index weighting according to fundamental criteria instead of according to market capitalisation is something new in the investment fund world and it is a sensible supplement to the existing options. This approach is not dependent on market cycles nor on hot topics that are currently “en vogue”. This means that, on the one hand, the durability of the investment fund idea is ensured. On the other hand, the product is an ideal portfolio supplement because of the low correlation with other types of investments.

Further information on the awards ceremony and the award-winning investment funds can be found at www.feri-fund-awards.de.

Press contact:

Stockheim Media GmbH
Carsten Böhme / Cornelia Wojahn
Tel.: +49 (0) 69 13 38 96-11 / -18
cb@stockheim-media.com / cw@stockheim-media.com