CQS, BlueCrest, BlackRock, Brummer & Partners and Man GLG led the line-up of winners at the 10th annual EuroHedge Awards last night, which were presented at a gala dinner and awards ceremony held in London on 27 January at the Grosvenor House Hotel.

Michael Hintze's CQS multi-strategy group won the coveted Fund of the Year award with its CQS Directional Opportunities Fund, capping an outstanding year across the board that saw the firm achieve multiple nominations for its stable of funds.

Mike Platt's BlueCrest won the Management Firm of the Year award for an amazing third year in a row – cementing its reputation as one of the best-performing global hedge fund groups through the financial crisis of the past three years.

The firm's BlueCrest Capital International flagship multi-strategy group also won the Multi-Strategy Award, while the group's big BlueTrend systematic trading strategy – led by Leda Braga – won one of the two Long-Term Performance awards, ranking as the best performer in relative value, macro and multi-strategy over five years.

BlackRock UK Emerging Companies, run by Richard Plackett and Ralph Cox, was also a big winner on the night – with the US-based giant's flagship European hedge fund strategy winning the other Long-Term Performance award, for best equity fund over five years, and also winning the Small-Cap Equity award for a third time.

The Stockholm-based Brummer & Partners group also took home two awards for 2010 after another very strong year for the firm's expanding global platform of hedge funds – with Nektar winning in Fixed-Income and Lynx landing a very hotly contested award for Managed Futures.

GLG – which is now part of the Man Group – was also a double-winner, with GLG Market Neutral winning comfortably in Convertibles & Volatility Strategies and GLG European Distressed Debt taking one of the two New Fund Awards on the night, for best relative value, macro and multi-strategy fund.

The other New Fund winner, for equity strategies, was Polygon European Equity Opportunity – underlining the strong recovery in 2010 by several of the hedge fund groups that had suffered most notably in the meltdown of 2008.

Among other winners for 2010 that had bounced back from earlier steep losses and restructurings were RAB Capital (with RAB Energy in Global Equity), Cheyne Capital (with Cheyne Real Estate Debt in Credit & Distressed), Toscafund (with Tosca Mid-Cap in UK Equity) and Henderson (with Henderson European narrowly winning the award for best European Equity fund under $500 million).

But there were also plenty of new names on the winners' roll for 2010. Pelham Long/Short, run by former Lansdowne man Ross Turner's Pelham Capital, won a very tight race to land the award for European Equity funds over $500 million – while the fast-growing BTG Pactual group won another keenly-fought contest in Global Macro with its flagship BTG Pactual Global Emerging Markets and Macro Fund.

Toro Capital, part of the Chenavari specialist credit investment group, won the new Best Smaller Fund award after a remarkable performance of over 90% in 2010, while Absolute Insight Credit won the inaugural award for Best UCITS Fund.

Marwyn Value Investors was a new winner in Event-Driven with another very high return, while Moore Capital also notched up its first victory at the awards – with its Moore Emerging Equity Long/Short fund winning in Emerging Market Equity. The fund is run by a team headed by Greg Coffey, previously a big winner at the awards during his time at GLG.

The Emerging Market Debt category was won by Moscow-based VR Global Offshore, while Cyprus-based systematic group IKOS was successful for a second year in succession – this time in the newly combined Commodities & Currency category with its IKOS FX programme.

Unusually, the only other repeat winner from the previous year's Awards apart from BlueCrest was GSA Capital International in the Equity Market-Neutral & Quantitative Strategies category. In an extraordinary dead-heat, 2009 winner GSA shared the award this year, with Sabre Style Arbitrage also winning.

The EuroHedge Awards for 2010, celebrating their 10th year, paid recognition to those funds that had achieved the best risk-adjusted performance across a range of strategy areas in what was a challenging and tough year for hedge funds and the whole financial world.

Over 900 people attended the EuroHedge Awards dinner, including most of the leading managers and investors in the European hedge fund industry. A full write-up on the Awards will be published in the February edition of EuroHedge.

The complete list of winners in the 24 award categories is as follows:

UK EQUITY
Tosca Mid-Cap

SMALL-CAP EQUITY
BlackRock UK Emerging Companies

EUROPEAN EQUITY (under $500m)
Henderson European Absolute Return

EUROPEAN EQUITY (over $500m)
Pelham Long/Short

GLOBAL EQUITY
RAB Energy

EMERGING MARKET EQUITY
Moore Emerging Equity Long/Short

EQUITY MARKET-NEUTRAL & QUANT STRATEGIES
GSA Capital International
Sabre Style Arbitrage

EVENT-DRIVEN
Marwyn Value Investors

CONVERTIBLES & VOLATILITY STRATEGIES
GLG Market Neutral

FIXED-INCOME
Brummer & Partners Nektar

CREDIT & DISTRESSED
Cheyne Real Estate Debt

EMERGING MARKET DEBT
VR Global Offshore

COMMODITIES & CURRENCY
IKOS FX

MANAGED FUTURES
Brummer & Partners Lynx

GLOBAL MACRO
BTG Pactual Global Emerging Markets and Macro

MULTI-STRATEGY
BlueCrest Capital International

BEST SMALLER FUND
Toro Capital

BEST UCITS FUND
Absolute Insight Credit

NEW FUND OF THE YEAR - EQUITY STRATEGIES
Polygon European Equity Opportunity

NEW FUND OF THE YEAR - RELATIVE VALUE, MACRO & MULTI-STRATEGY
GLG European Distressed Debt

LONG TERM PERFORMANCE – EQUITY STRATEGIES
BlackRock UK Emerging Companies

LONG TERM PERFORMANCE – RELATIVE VALUE, MACRO & MULTI-STRATEGY
BlueTrend

MANAGEMENT FIRM OF THE YEAR
BlueCrest Capital Management

FUND OF THE YEAR
CQS Directional Opportunities