In a year where only the fittest survived, seven fund managers including Schroders, Vanguard and Platinum proved they're on top of their game.

Schroders took the top award, Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year 2008, in the annual awards event held in Sydney last Friday.

Schroders beat numerous fund managers following Morningstar's qualitative research and analysis of a fund manager's risk-adjusted performance in the 12 months that saw global debt and equity markets collapse.

The fund manager also scooped two other awards namely "Fund Manager of the Year Multisector" and "Fund Manager of the Year Domestic Equities".

Schroders' country chief executive Greg Cooper said their portfolios managed to stay in the top quartile during the year because of their enlarged analyst research team, more dynamic asset allocation and looking at other types of risks overlooked by many of their peers.

"I think as an industry, we get a bit over focused on things like tracking error and other measures of volatility and they tend to lead you to some fairly poor conclusions. Sometimes, you have to be focused on what is really going on, and that includes understanding economic risk or operational leverage in a portfolio," he said.

Meanwhile, Vanguard took the gong for Fund Manager of the Year Fixed Interest, bagging the honours in the category that stole the limelight following the credit crisis.

"One of the real lessons from the past 12 months is the role fixed interest plays in lowering risk in a portfolio. Vanguard's index approach has been able to deliver investors a defensive and well diversified portfolio at low cost," said Ian Alcock, Vanguard's managing director, in a statement.

Rounding up the list were Investors Mutual (Domestic equities - small caps), Platinum Asset Management (International Equities), ING Investment Management (Listed Property), Solaris (Emerging Fund Manager) and UBS International Equities (Most Improved).