European CIO of the Year
Kristoffer Stensrud SKAGEN Funds

The judges agreed that the performance of all the chief investment officers who were entered into the funds europe CIO of the Year award had been “quite outstanding”. Kristoffer Stensrud was a runner up in last year’s awards but his strong history of performance saw him win this year.

Returns at the firm are world class and assets under management from outside the firm’s Norwegian base are rocketing.

At some point in time, Kristoffer has personally introduced and run all of SKAGEN’s equity funds.
SKAGEN Kon-Tiki, the equity fund that Kristoffer oversees, was in July awarded a ‘triple A’ rating by Standard & Poor’s. The ratings agency said: “Continuing strong relative returns from an experienced fund manager, with a disciplined approach and the support of a steadily growing team, fully support the fund’s move up to an S&P AAA rating.”   The Kon-Tiki fund was also ranked number one of 480 emerging markets funds.

Kristoffer was a co-founder of SKAGEN in 1993. Assets under management have grown from around e3m since then to almost e9bn. Described as a driving force behind the company’s unique investment philosophy, this philosophy has remained unchanged and is deeply ingrained in the organisation and culture.

Outside of the firm, Kristoffer is known for voicing non-mainstream views in the national and Scandinavian media.

Click on the play button on the left to watch a video of the award presentation.

The shortlist

Bruno Crastes, Credit Agricole Asset Management, London Branch
Under the leadership of Bruno Crastes, Crédit Agricole Asset Management (CAAM) in London has created innovative absolute return funds and during the course of 2007 Crastes proved adept at managing the risk budget for these funds during extreme spikes of volatility. This avoided CAAM becoming a forced seller and enabled the funds to increase their risk weighting in front of the market rebound. Crastes also maintained the transparency and liquidity of the funds in such a way that CAAM London was able to continue to offer full liquidity in the funds to clients.

Robin Geffen, Neptune Investment Management
Robin Geffen has assembled a boutique investment house that has become recognised for its conviction in the stocks it chooses and for its refusal to be influenced by benchmarks. Robin has helped establish the firm as a dynamic long-only investment house powered by high-quality in-house research. Neptune won on average nine out of ten pitches for pension mandates in 2007.

Nick Mustoe, Pictet Asset Management
Nick Mustoe caught the attention of our judges not so much for his record at Pictet, but for his previous role as CIO for Hermes Pension Management. Having joined as Pictet’s CIO Equities in July 2006, judges say Nick is one to watch. Since Mustoe’s appointment Pictet has almost doubled its active equities. Pictet said Nick’s background as an investor and his experience in successfully managing a large investment team prompted his appointment. Pictet’s expectations of Nick are matched by our judges.