Fund managers matter, sometimes more than others. As more teams adopt the mantra “we’re a team,” if only as window-dressing, more than more manager changes are reduced to “one cog out, one cog in.” Nonetheless, we know that losing funds with new managers tend to outperform losing funds that hold onto their teams, while the opposite is true for winning funds. Strong funds with stable teams and stable assets outperform strong funds facing instability (Bessler, et al, 2010). Because of the great volatility of their asset class, equity managers matter rather more than fixed-income investors.
| Ticker | Fund | Out with the old | In with the new | Dt |
| CUGAX | Aberdeen Global Absolute Return Strategies Fund | Adam Rudd and David Sol are no longer listed as portfolio managers for the fund. | Thomas Maxwell joins Katy Forbes, Neil Richardson, and Scott Smith on the management team. | 8/20 |
| NMIEX | Active M International Equity Fund | No one, but . . . | Polen Capital Management will be added as the fifth subadvisor to the fund, effective September 8th. | 8/20 |
| HOLD | Advisorshares Sage Core Reserves ETF | Mark MacQueen no longer serves as a portfolio manager of the fund. | Seth Henry will now manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| BATT | Amplify Advanced Battery Metals and Materials ETF, which will become Amplify Lithium & Battery Technology ETF on or about October 12, 2020. | Also on or about October 12th, Toroso Investments, LLC will cease serving as a sub-adviser to the fund. | Amplify Investments LLC and CSAT Investment Advisory, L.P. will continue to subadvise the fund. | 8/20 |
| MDPCX | Blackrock Asian Dragon Fund | Alethea Leung will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for the fund. | Stephen Andrews will now manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| MIMSX | BNY Mellon Small Cap Multi-Strategy Fund | Joseph Feeney, Thomas Murphy, Steven Pollack, Robert Zeuthen, William Scott Priebe, William Priebe, Todd Wakefield, Caroline Lee Tsao, John Porter, and José Muñoz are no longer listed as portfolio managers for the fund. | James Boyd and Patrick Kent will continue to manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| MMCIX | BNY Mellon Small/Mid Cap Multi-Strategy Fund | Stephanie Brandaleone, Joseph Corrado, Todd Wakefield, Edward Walter, Robert Zeuthen, Caroline Lee Tsao, John Porter, and Nicholas Cohn are no longer listed as portfolio managers for the fund. | James Boyd and Patrick Kent will continue to manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| LAIAX | Columbia Acorn International | Louis Mendes and Tae Han (Simon) Kim will no longer serve as portfolio managers for the fund. | Hans Stege will now manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| LAFAX | Columbia Acorn International Select | Stephen Kusmierczak is out. Curious given that this is a four-star fund with half a billion in assets. No word from Columbia as to why. | Hans Stege will continue to manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| CZMVX | Columbia Multi-Manager Value Strategies Fund | Effective immediately, Christopher Welch is removed as a portfolio manager to the fund. | The other eight managers remain. | 8/20 |
| FDLSX | Fidelity Select Leisure Portfolio | No one, immediately, but Becky Baker will transition off of the fund effective on or about February 28, 2021. | William Hilkert joins Becky Baker on the management team and will continue to manage the fund upon Ms. Baker’s departure. | 8/20 |
| FSTCX | Fidelity Select Telecommunications Portfolio | No one, immediately, but Matthew Drucker will transition off of the fund effective on or about February 28, 2021. | Nicole Abernathy joins Matthew Drucker on the management team and will continue to manage the fund upon Mr. Durcker’s departure. | 8/20 |
| GALLX | Goldman Sachs Flexible Cap Fund | Silverio Foresi has announced his intention to retire from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P. As such, effective September 30, 2020, Mr. Foresi will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for the fund. | Steven M. Barry will continue to serve as the portfolio manager for the fund. | 8/20 |
| MMUSX | Goldman Sachs Multi-Manager U.S. Dynamic Equity Fund | No one, but . . . | Artisan Partners Limited Partnership will now serve as an underlying manager of the fund, joining Lazard Asset Management LLC, Sirios Capital Management, L.P., Smead Capital Management, Inc., and Vaughan Nelson Investment Management, L.P. | 8/20 |
| HIEEX | Harbor Emerging Markets Equity Fund | Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. will no longer subadvise the fund. Oaktree is sort of iconic and their EM UCITS has a pretty solid record, for what that’s worth. | Marathon Asset Management LLP will now subadvise the fund. | 8/20 |
| HAFAX | Hartford AARP Balanced Retirement Fund | No one, but . . . | Lutz-Peter Wilke joins Christopher Goolgasian in managing the fund. Mr. Wilke previously served as a portfolio manager to the fund from August 2015 through July 2019 when they pursued a different investment objective and strategy. | 8/20 |
| HNCAX | Hartford International Growth Fund | The fund is moving to a single manager approach. Therefore, John Boselli and Tara Stillwell will no longer serve as portfolio managers to the fund. | Matthew Hudson will remain as the sole portfolio manager. | 8/20 |
| OSMAX | Invesco Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company Fund | Frank Jennings will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for the fund. | David Nadel will continue to manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| MPACX | Matthews Asia Growth | No one, but . . . | Michael Oh joins Taizo Ishida in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| MACSX | Matthews Asia Growth & Income | John Paul Lech will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for the fund as he focuses on the Emerging Markets Equity Fund. | Satya Patel joins Robert Horrocks and Kenneth Lowe in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| MATFX | Matthews Asia Innovators Fund | Tiffany Hsiao is leaving Matthews Asia for parts unknown. It’s a fairly major loss. | Raymond Deng joins Michael Oh in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| MSMLX | Matthews Asia Small Companies | Beini Zhou and Tiffany Hsiao have announced their departure from Matthews Asia and will no longer serve as portfolio managers for the fund. | Vivek Tanneeru will now manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| MAVRX | Matthews Asia Value, which will liquidate at the end of the month | Beini Zhou is leaving Matthews Asia, also for parts unknown. | Robert Horrocks will manage the fund through the liquidation. | 8/20 |
| MCSMX | Matthews China Small Companies | Tiffany Hsiao and YuanYuan Ji have announced their departure from Matthews Asia and will no longer serve as portfolio managers for the fund. | Winnie Chwang and Andrew Mattock will now manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| MEGMX | Matthews Emerging Markets Equity Fund | Beini Zhou is leaving Matthews Asia and will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for the fund. | John Paul Lech will continue to manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| NMMGX | Multi-Manager Global Real Estate Fund | Brookfield Public Securities Group LLC will no longer subadvise the fund. | Janus Capital Management, LLC will join Massachusetts Financial Services Company in subadvising the fund. | 8/20 |
| FJSIX | Nuveen Credit Income Fund | Kevin Lorenz is no longer listed as a portfolio manager for the fund and William Martin will leave the fund as of December 31, 2020. | Brenda Langenfeld joins Anders Persson, Jean Lin, Karina Bubeck and Aashh Parekh, who will continue to serve as portfolio managers of the fund | 8/20 |
| Various | ProFunds Europe 30 ProFund,UltraChina ProFund,UltraEmerging Markets ProFund,UltraInternational ProFunds,UltraJapan ProFund,UltraLatin America ProFund,UltraShort China ProFund,UltraShort Emerging Markets ProFund,UltraShort International ProFund,UltraShort Japan ProFund, and UltraShort Latin America ProFund plus 26 ProShares ETFs | Ryan Dofflemeyer no longer serves as a portfolio manager of the funds. | Alexander Ilyasov joins Scott Hanson in managing the funds. | 8/20 |
| PCAFX | Prospector Capital Appreciation Fund | No one, but . . . | Steven Labbe joins John Gillespie, Kevin O’Brien, and Jason Kish in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| POPFX | Prospector Opportunity Fund | No one, but . . . | Steven Labbe joins John Gillespie, Kevin O’Brien, and Jason Kish in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| PGIAX | Putnam Focused Equity Fund | No one, but . . . | Jacquelyne Cavanaugh and Walter Scully join Daniel Schiff in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| CBTAX | Six Circles Tax Aware Bond Fund | Wendy Casetta is removed as a portfolio manager to the fund. | Nicholas Venditti joins the other 10 managers in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| Various | Thrivent Aggressive Allocation Fund, Thrivent Moderate Allocation Fund, Thrivent Moderately Aggressive Allocation Fund, Thrivent Moderately Conservative Allocation Fund, Thrivent Balanced Income Plus Fund, Thrivent Diversified Income Plus Fund, Thrivent Global Stock Fund, and Thrivent International Allocation Fund |
Thrivent and the funds are deeply saddened to share that Darren Bagwell, a portfolio co-manager of the funds, recently passed away. | The rest of the teams remain. | 8/20 |
| TDEAX | Touchstone Dynamic Equity Fund, which will absorb Touchstone Anti-Benchmark US Core Equity and then will itself be renamed Touchstone Anti-Benchmark US Core Equity, effective October 3, 2020. | Wells Capital Management will no longer subadvise the fund, also effective October 3, 2020. | TOBAM S.A.S. will be the new subadvisor | 8/20 |
| TWQAX | Transamerica Large Cap Value | Effective on or about December 1, 2020, Levin Easterly Partners LLC will no longer subadvise the fund. | Rothschild & Co Asset Management US Inc. will subadvise the fund and Paul Roukis and Jeff Agne will manage the fund. | 8/20 |
| USAWX | USAA World Growth Fund | No one, but, knowing that six managers were surely not enough to handle a $1.4 billion fund, USAA just added ten more. | Peter Carpenter, Jason Dahl, Tyler Dann, Maria Freund, Robert Harris, Scott Kefer, Michael Koskuba, Joseph Mainelli, Erick Maronak, Michael Reynal, and Jeffrey Sullivan join the rest of the team in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| VGENX | Vanguard Energy Fund | Vanguard’s Quantitative Equity Group will no longer serve as an investment advisor to the fund. | Wellington Management Company LLP will serve as the fund’s sole advisor. | 8/20 |
| VAPAX | Virtus Rampart Equity Trend Fund, which will be renamed Virtus FORT Trend Fund. | Rampart Investment Management, LLC will no longer subadvise the fund. | FORT Investment Management LP will now subadvise the fund. | 8/20 |
| VGEIX | Virtus Vontobel Greater European Opportunities Fund | No one, but . . . | Markus Hansen joins Daniel Kranson in managing the fund. | 8/20 |
| VTUIX | Vontobel U.S. Equity Institutional Fund | No one, but . . . | Chul Chang joins Edwin Walczak and Matthew Benkendorf on the management team. | 8/20 |
| WWLAX | Westwood LargeCap Value Fund | Casey Flanagan will no longer serve as a portfolio manager for the fund. | Lauren Hill joins Scott Lawson, Matthew Lockridge, and William Sheehan on the management team. | 8/20 |
