Hard on the heels of the Enron and WorldCom scandals, RiskMetrics Group has launched a service which seeks to judge the success or otherwise of investment managers in avoiding risk in their portfolios over five-year periods.

To produce its list of winners and losers, RiskMetrics calculates the size of returns displayed by retail funds over the risks which they undergo. Risk is defined by RiskMetrics as the lowest point at which funds trade 95% of the time, against the standard measure of 67%.