The Absolute UCITS Awards recognise excellence in risk-adjusted and absolute return performance by alternative UCITS hedge funds – judged over one-year and three-year time periods across a variety of investment strategies.

Nominations for the one-year awards are based on 12-month performance numbers from September 2016 to the end of August 2017. For the three-year awards, the performance period runs from September 2014 to August 2017 inclusive.

There is also an award for New Fund of the Year – covering those new alternative UCITS funds that were launched between March 2016 and February 2017, with a trading history of between seven and 18 months.

In addition there are awards for Management Firm of the Year – based on the one-year performance across a firm’s range of funds, and for which the minimum level of assets under management to qualify is $1 billion – and for the Fund of the Year, for which the minimum asset level is $250 million.

The Absolute UCITS Awards aim to highlight the best risk-adjusted performers in the UCITS hedge fund industry across a range of categories, with nominations and awards being based on a combination of Sharpe ratios and absolute returns.

The awards are judged on a long-established methodology focusing on the risk-adjusted performance of funds, with the aim being to let the numbers do the talking.

The nominations and eventual winners are decided by an entirely quantitative process, which aims to reflect the two primary aims of hedge funds – to manage volatility and to deliver positive returns for investors.

For the one-year and three-year strategy award categories, the minimum fund asset level required to qualify for nominations is $100 million – with nominations being based primarily on Sharpe ratios over the 12-month and 36-month periods.

The winners are those funds that meet the relevant criteria and which achieve the highest returns among the nominated funds – so long as they are also within 25% of the best Sharpe ratios within their nominated peer groups.

To qualify for nominations, funds must achieve annualised returns higher than the median returns for their peer groups and they must also be within 10% of their high water marks.

For the New Fund, Management Firm and Fund of the Year awards – which include funds and firms operating across different strategy areas – nominees and winners are judged on additional comparative criteria as well as absolute returns and Sharpe ratios.

For the Fund of the Year award, we will take into account the qualifying winners in other categories – as well as other funds with exceptional performance which may have missed out on individual strategy awards by being narrowly outside the range on Sharpe Ratio.

Nominations for the Fund of the Year award will not be announced until the evening of the event itself.