Depth of experience was a compelling factor in the judging panel's decision to hand this year's Insurance Asset Risk Investment Team of the Year – Asset Manager award to M&G's fundamental credit team.

Its experience is proved by an impressive long-term track record – stretching back 30 years.

Over the past year, the team has received £4.5bn gross inflows from numerous insurance clients globally. And this kind of success is not a one-off. The team has experience of maintaining success and outperforming targets through different markets and credit cycles.

This kind of stability, both in terms or performance and philosophy, across all strategies and funds, is reflected in the fact that clients tend to stick with the team for the long-term, with only one fund manager leaving to join a competitor since 2004.

The asset manger's long running relationship with Prudential has encouraged M&G to develop a value-based, bottom-up strategy of managing assets that are aligned to insurance companies' requirements. This has ensured that value is generated across the entire insurance balance sheet, from bespoke liquidity management, optimising and diversifying core ALM holdings, to expanding surplus allocations into more yield-generative asset classes.

It is an approach, ultimately, that is not dependent on the twists and turns of market liquidity, but in the construction of highly diversified portfolios.