Fund managers including Orbis, Independent Asset Management and Bennelong had among the best-performing Australian equities funds in 2010, according to new research.
The Orbis/SM Australia Equity Fund topped the category of 135 funds after it returned 10.3 per cent during the 12 months, Mercer's sector survey said.
Independent Asset Management's Australian shares fund, Continnum Aggressive and Bennelong Concentrated Equities were the next best performers, recording gains of 9.8 per cent, 9.7 per cent and 9.6 per cent respectively.
In contrast, managers including Integrity Investment Management, Tyndall, Invesco and UBS had among the worst-performing Australian equities funds in 2010.
The Integrity Concentrated Value Fund slumped 5.2 per cent during the 12 months. Its rank tumbled to 135 in 2010, from 20 the year before, according to the Mercer survey.
Tyndall Income, Invesco long/short and UBS HALO were the next worst performers, losing 4.2 per cent, 4 per cent and 3.8 per cent respectively.
The S&P/ASX 300 returned 1.9 per cent in 2010, while the median Australian shares manager in the survey returned 1.3 per cent.
"Overweighting smaller companies will have helped managers' performance, with the S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries rising by 13.1 per cent," Mercer principal David Carruthers said.
"Mid-size companies also outperformed the largest companies, with the mid-50 up by 4.1 per cent and the largest 50 companies barely increasing, returning 0.4 per cent."
