The Hedgeweek Global Awards 2016 for excellence among hedge fund managers and service providers celebrate the achievements of firms that contributed to another significant year for the sector.

With fund raising set to become even more challenging in 2016, hedge fund managers have their work cut out but as this industry has proven time and again, innovation and coming up with creative ways to attract investor dollars – as well as trade markets – is never far away. Hedge funds thrive on adversity, although one feels that with performance having lagged for a couple of years, 2016 could be a particularly important year. 

ACA Aponix provides financial services firms with a 360-degree, independent approach to technology risk and governance. Over the past 12 months, the firm has grown its client roster to 150 clients spanning the US and Europe, and is now signing contracts in Asia. To support this expansion, its client-facing team has grown by 300 per cent and added offices in London and the West Coast of America in addition to New York. 

Agecroft Partners was founded by Don Steinbrugge, who has 32 years of experience in the institutional investment management industry, including previously serving as the head of sales for one of the world's largest hedge funds and institutional investment management firms. 

For the sixth consecutive year, the Best Global Accounting Firm is Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. With a staff of more than 350 and numerous specialised industry and service teams, Anchin is a full-service accounting, tax and advisory firm that provides investment companies, privately-held businesses, and HNW individuals with a wide range of traditional and non-traditional services. Jeffrey Rosenthal, CPA, is Partner- in-Charge of Anchin's Financial Services Group. 2015 was, he says, a `breakthrough year'. 

Blue Diamond Asset Management is an independent privately owned company based in Pfaffikon, Switzerland. The team of 4 investment professionals and one COO has a singular focus on the Non-Directional strategy. The strategy uses systematic, proprietary investment processes to capture opportunities arising in the equity volatility markets to generate attractive risk-adjusted returns. Since the strategy launched on 30 September, 2011 it has generated a gross annualised return of 31.9 per cent, 21.6 per cent net. 

Whereas previously investment managers might have looked at risk from a `check-the-box' perspective, today's regulatory environment and the growing sophistication of institutional investors is requiring them take it more seriously. There is, according to Bennett Egeth, President of Broadridge Investment Management Solutions, a need to generate consistent, reproducible risk reporting for regulators. 

Capital Support is a leading managed IT services provider. Midway through 2015, it was acquired by Six Degrees Group. Being able to rely on a stronger balance sheet, coupled with the fact that Six Degrees Group owns data centres and network assets, has helped Capital Support win larger and more complex customers, according to COO, Carl Chapman.

According to Stephen Burke, Managing Director, EMEA, at Cordium, one of the world's leading regulatory compliance consultancies, regulation has changed the fund market. There is much more complexity and both investors and regulators are more exacting. This has led to Cordium focusing on its software proposition, which culminated in the launch of a product solution set earlier this year around how clients organise their compliance arrangements and engage with their compliance programmes. 

2015 was a big year for Concept Capital Markets, LLC having entered into an agreement to be acquired by Cowen Group, a leading growth investment bank and alternative investment firm with a heritage dating back to 1918. The transaction was completed 1 September 2015 and thanks to the significant financial and intellectual resources that Cowen has at its disposal, the newly named `Cowen Prime Services' division is now well positioned, and resourced, to further expand its prime brokerage offering.

Hendrik Klein and his team at Zurich-based Da Vinci Invest AG have been trading futures on Eurex since 1995, using a sophisticated algorithm to track economic indicators. In 2009, when Need to Know News brought out a computer-readable news feed, Klein immediately implemented it into the Da Vinci algorithm. 

DMS Offshore Investment Services specialises in providing global fund governance with the firm best regarded for the provision of offshore independent directors in the Cayman Islands. The second core business line is its UCITS and AIFMD management company and platform based in Dublin and Luxembourg. The interest in the platform has accelerated this year to the point where the management company has secured more than 60 fund mandates with close to 40 launched. 

2015 proved to be an excellent year for HedgeMark. Since BNY Mellon's acquisition of HedgeMark in May 2014, it's thesis regarding the strategic value of housing a dedicated managed account business within a global asset servicing organisation has been validated. 

The IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker ETF (`QAI') seeks to replicate the risk-adjusted return characteristics of hedge funds using multiple hedge fund investment styles, including long/short equity, global macro, market neutral, event-driven, fixed income arbitrage, and emerging markets. 

The Portfolio Amalfi™ platform by Nedelma Inc. offers multi-asset, multi-language, multi-currency dynamic reporting and data visualisation, as well as analytical capabilities to the asset management industry. The platform also offers data aggregation tools, portfolio management solutions and a calculation engine. Users can analyse and view data from multiple perspectives using a combination of attributes, formulas and values, with extensive options for dynamic customisation. 

Multi-award-winning hedge fund administrator Opus Fund Services was established in Bermuda in 2006, subsequently expanding its footprint into the US with offices in Chicago (2008), San Francisco (2009), New York (2013) and Portland (2014). It serves over 275 fund managers and 400+ funds with a combined AUM exceeding USD10.5bn.

Piquant Technologies' Pegasus Fund launched in 2013 and has delivered stable and diversifying returns annualising at just over 10 per cent. Piquant runs a fully automated portfolio, gaining trading insights by applying machine-learning techniques to huge datasets. 

Peregrine Communications is an international, asset management marketing communications specialist, providing brand building, brand protection and lead generation services to help clients grow AUM. It has been delivering integrated marketing communications for hedge funds since 2002, supporting an increasingly international client base from its primary offices in London and New York.

Preqin is a leading alternative asset data provider that sits between managers and investors, tracking appetite for the industry based on fund raising activity and fund performance. Since it was established 15 years ago, Preqin has been the go-to source for investors as they assess manager performance and track record as part of their selection process. 

Quaesta Capital AG is an independent Swiss financial services provider with a primary focus on currency management. Based in Pfaeffikon, Switzerland, Quaesta Capital AG was founded in 2005 and currently manages approximately USD3bn in currency volatility and global macro strategies and bespoke currency overlay mandates.

At the heart of Swiss-based RBR Capital Advisors AG's investment philosophy is the strong belief that rigorous bottom up research has the potential to allow it to outperform the markets on a consistent basis. RBR Capital invests in companies by building a strong fundamental investment case allowing it to take meaningful position sizes in those companies in which it has the most conviction. 

For the last three years, Sabre Fund Management, one of London's most well established hedge fund managers, has been running a low net equity strategy in tandem with the market neutral Sabre Style Arbitrage Fund. 

Sadis & Goldberg LLP is one of New York's leading financial services focused law firms. Known both domestically and internationally as a dominant force in the financial services sector, Sadis & Goldberg serves clients throughout the world and was recently ranked as one of the top five law firms for hedge fund launches in the 2016 Preqin Global Hedge Fund Report.