AGF Emerging Markets Fund Wins Top Lipper Award In Its Category

AGF fund continues to garner accolades for its consistent superior performance

TORONTO, Feb. 19 /CNW/ - AGF Emerging Markets Fund continued its winning streak at last night's 2010 Canadian Lipper Awards ceremony in Toronto garnering the coveted trophy for achieving the best three-year returns in its category, along with the certificate for best five-year returns.

This win by AGF Emerging Markets Fund, managed by Senior Vice-President and Portfolio Manager Patricia Perez-Coutts and AGF's Global Equity Team, builds on its recognition as having the best five-year returns in its category at the 2009 Canadian Lipper Awards. In addition, last December, the Fund won the Emerging Markets Equity Fund Award at the 2009 Canadian Investment Awards for the fourth time.

"We are delighted that Lipper continues to honour our popular AGF Emerging Markets Fund and our disciplined investment team of managers and analysts, led by Patricia Perez-Coutts," said Martin Hubbes, Executive Vice-President and Chief Investment Officer with AGF Investments. "This recognition is a testament to the strength and depth of our talent and the successful team approach we take to money management at AGF to deliver solid returns for investors."

With approximately $1 billion in assets as of January 31, 2010, AGF Emerging Markets Fund is five-star rated by Morningstar for risk-adjusted returns.

Ms. Perez-Coutts and the Global Equity Team seek to uncover long-term investment opportunities trading at attractive valuations, with strong earnings growth dynamics and employ a disciplined bottom up stock selection process to provide consistent, long-term growth for investors.

"One of the reasons AGF Emerging Markets Fund continues to outperform its peers is that Ms. Perez-Coutts leads an experienced and truly global team of managers and analysts who hail from four continents and together speak 10 languages," added Hubbes. "Together they bring a wealth of experience and diversity to managing an emerging markets fund with an impressive track record of success that an investor would be hard pressed to find anywhere else."

The Lipper Fund Awards recognize funds that have excelled in delivering consistently strong risk-adjusted performance, relative to peers.

About The Lipper Fund Awards

The Lipper Fund Awards are part of the Thomson Reuters Awards for Excellence, a global family of awards that celebrate exceptional performance throughout the professional investment community. The Thomson Reuters Awards for Excellence recognize the world's top funds, fund management firms, sell-side firms, research analysts, and investor relations teams. The Thomson Reuters Awards for Excellence also include the Extel Survey Awards, the StarMine Analyst Awards, and the StarMine Broker Rankings. For more information, please contact [email protected] or visit excellence.thomsonreuters.com

About AGF Management Limited

AGF Management Limited is one of Canada's premier investment solutions firms with offices across Canada and subsidiaries around the world. AGF's products and services include a diversified family of award-winning mutual funds, AGF Elements portfolios, the Harmony asset management program, services for institutional and private clients, as well as AGF Trust GICs, loans and mortgages. With approximately $43.4 billion in total assets under management, AGF serves more than one million investors. AGF trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol AGF.B.

For further information: or to obtain AGF's backgrounder chronicling the firm's award-winning history, contact AGF Public Relations and Public Affairs: Lucy Becker, Vice-President, [phone], [email protected]; Karen Archer, Media Relations Manager, [phone], [email protected]