Royce, Artisan, FPA Managers Take Top Morningstar Awards

Managers of funds at Royce, Artisan and First Pacific Advisors took the three highest honors in Morningstar’s annual Fund Manager of the Year Award, for domestic stock, international stock and fixed income, respectively.

Charlie Dreifus, manager of the Royce Special Equity Fund, is this year’s domestic stock fund Manager of the Year. David Samra and Daniel O’Keefe of the Artisan International Value Fund are this year’s international stock fund Managers of the Year. And Bob Rodriguez and Tom Atteberry of the FPA New Income Fund are the fixed income fund Managers of the Year.

“When selecting our Fund Managers of the year,” said Russ Kinnel, director of mutual fund research at Morningstar, “we look for superior long- and short-term performance, proven strategies executed by experienced teams rather than trend-chasing, and strong stewardship. 2008 was such a challenging year for fund investors and managers. We have seen how crucial it is for managers to be able to successfully limit investors’ losses.”

For the year, the Dreifus fund was down 19.6%, the Artisan fund lost 30.1%, and the FPA fund rose 4.3%.