Last night 99 fund firms — including T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, Pimco, OppenheimerFunds, Vanguard, TIAA's Nuveen, Capital Group's American Funds, and many more — won big at an industry awards show in New York City.

Bob Jenkins, head of research at Refinitiv's Lipper, returned to emcee the 2019 Refinitiv Lipper Fund Awards USA dinner, which was held again at the Mandarin Oriental in midtown Manhattan. 100 mutual fund shops were recognized. The eight shops mentioned above each won more than a dozen wards, and many other fund firms won multiple awards, too. (Here's the methodology.)

This was the first U.S. Lipper Fund Awards show since Refinitiv spun out of Thomson Reuters last year, so as Jenkins pointed out, the color scheme shifted to blue (thanks to Refinitiv's logo). Pradeep Menon, managing director of investing and advisory at Refinitiv, talked about the new company and its history.

The Lipper team partnered again with InvestmentNews on the event, and the publication's associate publisher and managing editor, Mark Bruno, spoke at the event. Fred Gabriel, Jr., editorial director of the publication, also did an ESG-focused "fireside chat" (sans fireside) with Kathleen Gaffney, managing director of fixed income at Eaton Vance. It turns out that, if Gaffney made a Netflix series about her experience integrating ESG investing expertise over the last couple of years, she would call it "A Remarkable Planet."

For the fourth year in a row, the High Water Women charity partnered with Lipper at the dinner. Kathleen Kelley, founding managing partner of the charity, rallied attending fundsters to contribute to HWW's 2019 backpack drive. They raised more than $12,000 this time, and their goal is to reach $400,000 this year so that this fall they can supply 20,000 children with backpacks full of school supplies.

"We're empowerment squared," Kelley said.

T. Rowe was the biggest winner last night, landing 22 awards. Fido won 21 awards, OpFunds and Pimco 19 each (including 2 group awards for Pimco), Vanguard 18, and Cap Group and Nuveen 14 each (including a group award for TIAA). Other group winners included: Morgan Stanley, which won 13 awards; Thrivent, which won seven; Ashmore, which won four; Primecap, which won two; and GuideStone.

Eaton Vance won 12 awards. BlackRock and Wells Fargo won nine each. Franklin Templeton and Virtus won six each. GMO, Hartford, and Invesco won five each. And Catalyst won four.

Charles Schwab, Columbia Threadneedle, Crossmark, DFA, Great-West, J.P. Morgan, MFS, ProFunds, and Voya all won three awards each.

Adams Asset Investors, AllianceBernstein, AQR, Cohen & Steers, Copley, Dodge & Cox, DoubleLine, Euro Pacific Asset Management, Harvest, Highland, Hotchkis & Wiley, Icon, Legg Mason, Loomis Sayles, Matthews Asia, Oak Associates, and Thompson IM all won two awards each.

The other winners included: 361 Capital, Aberdeen Standard, Advisors Preferred, AlphaCentric, AlphaSimplex, Altegris, American Beacon, American Century, Amundi Pioneer, AXA, Baron, Cavalier, Credit Suisse, Davis, Macquarie's Delaware, Diamond Hill, BNY Mellon's Dreyfus, First Trust, Firsthand Capital, Frost, Gamco, Gotham, Guggenheim, Hennessy, Infinity Q, John Hancock, Kerns Capital Management, Kinetics Asset Management, Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors, Lazard, LoCorr, Lord Abbett, Neuberger Berman, PGIM, Polaris Capital Management, Polen, Principal, Putnam, RiverNorth, RMB, Schwartz, SEI, Seven Canyons, Shelton, Sit, SunAmerica, TCW, Tortoise, USAA, Van Eck, WCM Investment Management, and Zevenbergen. 

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