The European Funds Trophy is not just a prestige award. For many of the national winners, it provides a foothold outside of their home markets. Photo: Fundclass

The European Funds Trophy is not just a prestige award. For many of the national winners, it provides a foothold outside of their home markets. Photo: Fundclass

The 16th edition of the European Funds Trophy is being held in Paris on 10 March. The annual event is covered by the press in several European countries, including France, Italy, Spain and Luxembourg, where Maison Moderne is a partner via Delano and Paperjam. The event will also be broadcasted via livestream.

The European Funds Trophy is awarded by a group of European media from France, Italy, Spain and Luxembourg to the best funds and asset managers across Europe.

The origins of the awards date back to the arrival of the euro. At that time, under the impetus of Le Monde and the qualitative fund rating agency Fundclass, a consortium of European newspapers was launched: the Eurofonds initiative. The current press partners are Le Monde, Paperjam and Delano, La Stampa, El Pais and LCI.

The initial idea was to give consumers in a European investment fund market favoured by the arrival of the euro all the information they needed to compare the products they could access.

Risk-adjusted performance

This fund ranking is based on the APT methodology and calculates performance according to the risk taken by the managers. The funds are divided into categories corresponding to their investment universe. This allocation is based on statistical calculations and not on the statements of fund promoters, according to large rating agencies such as Morningstar. This ensures that there is no bias or conflict of interest. If a fund is listed in the “healthcare” category, it is because the manager will be effectively exposed to this investment universe and will not have tried to surreptitiously find performance elsewhere.

For a fund to receive five stars in the Fundclass methodology, the highest rating, it must firstly perform well--a performance established by the ranking--and above all be regular--regularity is rewarded by the award of stars. On a scale ranging from 5 stars to -2 stars, only the 5 and 4 star funds guarantee a regular return for investors. They are the exception in the universe of funds marketed in Europe, 30% at most. That has been a constant proportion since 2007. With 3 stars, investors are effectively protected. After that, they could lose money. In 2021, 52% of funds will have delivered performances that are, if not negative, at least below market growth.

Consistency in performance

This is the basis for the European Funds Trophy, which recognises the best funds of the year and above all the best management companies over time. Companies are divided into eight categories according to the size of their range of rated funds. The categories are broken down by country. In addition, there is a European-first prize which rewards them when they are the best, all countries combined. The respective ranges are screened to identify the number of starred funds. The more starred funds of the highest possible quality, the better the chances of winning. This ranking also takes into account performance over time. The calculations are made over a period of four consecutive years.

A special prize, the Fundclass Trophy, will also be awarded to the best management companies based on their results over 7 years.

This year, the evening will be chaired by , the CEO of Luxembourg for Finance, who also held this role in 2019, 2020 and 2021. He continues a long Luxembourg tradition. The president of the first edition in 2007 was , then prime minister. “The investment fund industry is an industry of great interest to my country”, he said at the time. This is even more true today. With €5.686bn in assets at the end of January, Luxembourg is the European leader in this field.

Details of the event can be found on the ’s website. It will be livestreamed

Originally published in French by and translated for Delano