Many of the biggest actively managed Australian equities funds by net assets outperformed the index in the 2008/09 financial year.
Perpetual's Wholesale Industrial Fund, with over $3 billion in net assets, declined 8.41 per cent, Ausbil's Australian Active Equity Fund, with $2.3 billion, fell 17.71 per cent and Colonial First State's (CFS) Wholesale Imputation Fund, with $1.77 billion, lost 13.97 per cent, Morningstar data showed.
The S&P/ASX 200 Index was down 20.14 per cent in the same period.
"Perpetual have a quality-focused investment process which came to the fore in the 2008/09 financial year. The Industrial Fund also doesn't have any resources exposure and that's one part of the market which was heavily hit in the latter part of last year," Morningstar manager of fund analysis Chris Douglas said.
"Ausbil Dexia also had another good year. The manager was heavily exposed to resources shares in 2004 to 2007 and cleverly rotated into defensives in 2008, enabling the fund to trump the index over one- and five-year periods," he said.
Among small cap managers, Ausbil's Australian Emerging Leaders Fund, with $615.3 million, and Investors Mutual Wholesale Future Leaders Fund, with $249.2 million, lost 22.99 per cent and 13.96 per cent, respectively.
The S&P/ASX Small Ordinaries Index dropped 28.58 per cent in the 2008/09 financial year.
"Ausbil have proven to be shrewd stock pickers in the small- to mid-cap space as well. It's worth noting that their portfolio has a mid-cap bias and that part of the market has held up better than a pure small-cap approach would have," Douglas said.
Investors Mutual's focus on value and avoiding cyclical sectors such as resources meant the strategy lagged peers during the bull market but did very well amid the global financial crisis, he said.
Other big small-cap strategies including Orbis, CFS, Eley Griffiths and Pengana also beat the index.
In global equities, Platinum's International Fund, with $7.87 billion in net assets, surged 18.21 per cent in the 12 months to June 2009.
