High Net Worth Class
High Net Worth for client portfolios of £1 million or over.

PAM Award Categories
The aim of the Awards Programme is to gather market data on the relative performance of the leading private asset management firms, including private banks, fund managers and stockbrokers.

We ask the judges to name the top managers whom they believe to be the best in each of the categories below on the basis of specific criteria (as shown in brackets):

• Investment Performance: Defensive Portfolios (Criterion: the institution that has, as a whole, most consistently delivered the best risk-adjusted investment returns for clients for defensive investment mandates over the past three years)
• Investment Performance: Defensive Portfolios (Criterion: the institution that has, as a whole, most consistently delivered the best risk-adjusted investment returns for clients for defensive investment mandates over the past three years)
• Investment Performance: Growth Portfolios (Criterion: the institution that has, as a whole, most consistently delivered the best absolute investment returns for clients for growth investment mandates over the past three years)
• Best Use of Alternative Investment Classes (Criterion: the institution that has used alternatives to best effect, either as instruments in their own right, or in combination with traditional asset classes to boost risk adjusted portfolio returns)
• Best Use of Long-Only Multi-Manager Structures (Criterion: the institution that has used long-only multi-manager structures to best effect to boost risk adjusted portfolio returns)
• Product Innovation (Criterion: the institution that has created the most innovative investment management solutions to boost risk adjusted portfolio returns)
• Quality and Clarity of Reporting (Criterion: the institution that has most consistently provided the most regular, comprehensive and clear client account reports)
• Image & Reputation (Criterion: the institution whose marketing activity has made the most positive impression in the past twelve months)
• Overall Service Quality – Large Institutions (Criterion: the institution that has offered the best overall service, covering - inter alia - administration, relationship management, accessibility and product delivery)
• Overall Service Quality – Boutiques (Criterion: the boutique that has offered the best overall service, covering - inter alia - administration, relationship management, accessibility and product delivery)

Order of Merit
The PAM Awards Programme in the High Net Worth class again features three classes of the leading managers in each Award category: commended, shortlisted and winner.

PAM Judging Panel
Given the greater sophistication and demands of high net worth investors, manager evaluation is carried out via a panel of leading experts who combine their market expertise to deliver a combination of quantitative performance attribution analysis with their experience of live client portfolios held with managers in the market.

In this class the private asset management firms enter themselves for individual award categories via the completion of an exhaustive questionnaire, including 99 questions across nine subject areas, encapsulating: group structure & personnel; investment management process; banking, custody and controls; regulation and investor protection; investment performance; fees, charges and interest; reporting and instructions; and conflicts of interest disclosures.

All manager entries delivered by the deadline are presented to members of the Panel. Each entry is examined by Panel members, who individually make a determination as to whether the manager’s entry should be nominated for the second stage of the selection process in order of merit.

Entries that carry Panel members’ nominations in each Award category are put forward for judging by all members of the Panel. There is no pre-determined number of entries that move forward to the second stage in each Award category and entries are evaluated purely on merit. Panel members are given a list of the leading contenders for each Award category, which Panel members rank in ascending order of their individual preference, with 1 as the highest rank.

All of the Panel members’ votes are then returned and computed, by combining scores for each manager entry to establish an average. The managers are then placed in order, starting with the lowest average score (the highest ranked firm).

This list is then presented to the Panel in closed plenary session. The Panel debates the respective merits of the nominated firms and determines the (unlimited) number of managers to be shortlisted for each Award category.

The Panel then discusses and evaluates the shortlisted managers, from which it chooses a winner in each Award category.