PMs at Mairs & Power [profile], Pimco [profile], T. Rowe Price [profile], TFS [profile] and Virtus [profile] are celebrating today. This afternoon Morningstar revealed its 2012 fund managers of the year in five categories, including the two brand new categories for alternatives and allocation products.

In the domestic-stock category, M* crowned Bill Frels and Mark Henneman of the Mairs & Power Growth Fund, a five-star, silver-rated large blend mutual fund with $2.6 billion in assets. Frels and Henneman beat out nominees from American Funds, Fidelity and Harris Associates, including 2001 winner Bill Nygren.

Rajiv Jain — PM of the five-star, silver-rated, $1.3-billion Virtus Foreign Opportunities Fund and the five-star, silver-rated, $6.8-billion Virtus Emerging Markets Opportunities Fund — won in the international-stock category. He beat out nominees from Artisan and OppenheimerFunds.

Though Bill Gross didn't win one of the five awards (indeed, he wasn't even nominated), fellow Pimco PM Mark Kiesel did win, for his work helming the five-star, silver-rated, $10.2-billion Pimco Investment Grade Corporate Bond Fund. M* picked Kiesel over nominees from Brandywine, Loomis Sayles, TCW's MetWest and Scout.

Chao Chen, Larry Eiben, Kevin Gates, Richard Gates, Yan Liu and Eric Newman won M*'s first ever alternatives fund manager of the year award, for PMing the five-star, gold-rated, $1.8-billion TFS Market Neutral Fund. They beat out nominees from Calamos and MainStay.

And in the brand new allocation category winner was David Giroux. Giroux PMs the five-star, gold-rated, $13.7-billion T. Rowe Price Capital Appreciation Fund. He beat out another nominee from T. Rowe, as well as nominees from Dodge and Cox, J.P. Morgan and Pimco. 

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