Not offering everything to everybody is the secret behind Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Sons Ltd.'s success in its fund management.

This is according to Ian Coulman, the new managing director of Butterfield Asset Management, which has just been awarded a prestigious international performance award for the fifth year running. And the award this year is even more impressive when you consider the poor global market performance which has hit the profits of all investments and funds under management.

"The majority of our competitors in these awards are bigger players who offer everything to everybody," said Mr. Coulman. "We are smaller and more flexible and know our niche market."

But he added that while they currently managed $5.5 billion in assets, they would love to expand into $10 or $15 billion in assets. "We have found our niche and have focussed on insurance, captives, high net worth individuals and trusts," said Dianne Brewer, vice president of Butterfield Asset Management.

"We have targeted products to suit the market and suit the needs of our customers. The best thing we have done is to come up with products for a niche market because Bermuda has customers and clients unlike anywhere else."

The fund managers at Butterfield Asset Management, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Butterfield, won several performance awards from Standard & Poor's Micropal for its in-house managed mutual funds.

The S&P Awards are considered to be a global standard by which fund managers and investment management groups are measured.

Butterfield Funds was awarded second place globally for the "Five Year Performance" of the entire family of Butterfield Funds across all sectors which includes offshore funds in the smaller groups category, for companies with four to 14 funds in four or more sectors.

Butterfield Capital Appreciation Bond Fund also scooped first place in the world for "Five Year Performance" for its fixed income in global sector and won out of a total of 43 funds.

Butterfield Capital Appreciation Bond Fund also won first place in the world for "One Year Performance" of its fixed income in the global sector, beating 61 other funds.

And to top it off, United States Dollar Butterfield International Balanced Fund, won first place in the world for five year performance in the asset allocation, and global neutral sector, wining out of a group of 36 funds.

"I would like to emphasise that this is a team effort," said Mr. Coulman. "We could not do this without everyone in the team and many of the people who work in the bank."

He added: "This year's awards are particularly impressive since they demonstrate that our investment strategy has out-performed consistently over a long-term, five-year period across all sectors. This is the result of the ongoing application of a sound investment philosophy on a consistent basis, as has been demonstrated by our award winning history."

Ms Brewer said that awards like this helped raise the profile of not only the bank, but also of Bermuda."From our point of view, it puts us on the radar map," she said "To win awards five years in a row is really exciting for us."

The awards are judged according to S&P's "Relative Risk-Adjusted" calculation. S& P said: "Funds that steadily pull ahead of their benchmark should be rewarded over funds that are more erratic against their benchmark, even if both rose by similar percentages."