JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley take top awards

Last night AsianInvestor announced the winners of its marquee prizes at its annual Service Provider Awards dinner, held in Hong Kong at the JW Marriott.

JP Morgan was named best in asset servicing for the second year in a row. It has been a leading contender in all parts of the custody business, including securities lending, collateral management, transition management and fund administration. It remains a vital provider to the region's biggest institutional investors and has seen its year-on-year assets under custody rise 15% to $1.9 trillion.

We also named BNY Mellon Asset Servicing's Andrew Gordon as custody banker of the year. Gordon heads the firm's alternative investment services division, which was named best in fund administration for alternative products, a unit that has become a major driver of success across the entire organisation.

Goldman Sachs was named best prime broker. In a difficult year, the firm has seen its share of the region's hedge-fund assets increase by 28% to $135 billion, and its business is now at pre-crisis levels. It has maintained staffing levels over the past few years and has won virtually every significant mandate in Asia-Pacific.

We also named individual winners within prime broking: Morgan Stanley's Hugh Abdullah as best capital introductions specialist; Ashley Jarvis, also at Morgan Stanley, for best consultant; and Citi's Andrew Hill as best salesperson.

Finally, Morgan Stanley was named best sell-side broker for equities in Asia-Pacific. It won this based on its strong showing in our recently published survey of buy-side equity traders (see the October edition of AsianInvestor magazine), where it was named best at sourcing liquidity and as having the best momentum in the business. It scored well across the board, in sales trading, program trading and electronic trading.

Oliver Bolitho, head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Asia-Pacific, delivered a keynote address highlighting the industry's prospects for 2012 and what asset managers need from their service providers to help them succeed.