Boston Partners stands a reasonable chance of winning Morningstar’s Manager Of The Year award in the alternatives category for the second year in a row.

The nominations are also good news for John Hancock, which has a suite of funds, many of them sub-advised, in the liquid alts space. Two of the three nominees for the award are Jay Feeney and Eric Connerly, co-managers of the Boston Partners Long/Short Research fund, and Guy Stern, manager of John Hancock Global Absolute Return Strategies fund.

Boston Partners sub-advises several Hancock funds, while Standard Life Investments sub-advises Hancock’s Global Absolute Return fund. The other alternatives fund nominated is the Vanguard Market Neutral fund run by James Troyer, Michael Roach and James Stetler.

Last year’s winners in the alternatives category were Robert T. Jones and Ali Motamed of the Boston Partners Long/Short Equity fund. Morningstar said at the time that this fund displayed “solid long-term outperformance and its alpha generation, or outperformance relative to its level of market risk as measured by beta, was particularly attractive from 2008 through 2014.”

Morningstar's awards will be announced on January 26.