I’m so grateful to have stable employment in a position that allowed me to – quickly and fairly painlessly – pivot to a work from home model. I have not yet encountered a task that couldn’t be completed remotely. As a matter of fact, I think I’m being more productive than ever, as we puzzle through various scenarios for offering community college classes over the summer and into the fall semester.
I find my emotions Continue reading →
Fund managers matter, sometimes more than others. As more teams adopt the mantra “we’re a team,” if only as window-dressing, more and 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. (Sorry guys.)
And so each month we track Continue reading →
Most months, 50 or 60 equity-oriented funds and ETFs undergo partial or complete changes to the management teams. Perhaps owing to our strained physical and financial environment, the number of changes this month is substantially lower: 38. Three of those are occasioned by retirements and 11 more are simply adding a member to an existing team. On whole, the industry seems to be focusing its energy elsewhere this month.
And good for Continue reading →
Every month we track changes to the management teams of equity, alternative and balanced funds, along with a handful of fixed-income ones. Why “a handful”? Because most fixed-income funds are such sedate creatures, with little performance difference between the top quartile funds and the bottom quartile, that the changes are not consequential. Even in the realms we normally cover, the rise of management committees dilutes the significance of any individual’s departure or arrival.
Chip tracked down 74 funds with manager changes this month. Most of the changes are Continue reading →
Because the manager change at Elfun Diversified (ELDFX) made Chip’s brain itch (“I’m sorry. ‘Elf Fun,’ what on earth is that about?”) I wanted to take a moment to explain the distinctive moniker. The Elfun funds were originally part of the General Electric retirement system. Their names are a contraction of “Electric Funds.” In a remembrance of his recently-deceased father, Walt Thiessen wrote:
Elfun (short for “electric fund”) was originally a Continue reading →
Every month we track changes to the management teams of equity, alternative and balanced funds, along with a handful of fixed-income ones. Why “a handful”? Because most fixed-income funds are such sedate creatures, with little performance difference between the top quartile funds and the bottom quartile, that the changes are not consequential. Even in the realms we normally cover, the rise of management committees dilutes the significance of any individual’s departure or arrival.
This is another of the months in which the number of funds making changes is relatively large – 55 – but the number making dramatic changes is minimal. Alger Emerging Market’s Continue reading →
Every month we track changes to the management teams of equity, alternative and balanced funds, along with a handful of fixed-income ones. Why “a handful”? Because most fixed-income funds are such sedate creatures, with little performance difference between the top quartile funds and the bottom quartile, that the changes are not consequential. Even in the realms we normally cover, the rise of management committees dilutes the significance of any individual’s departure or arrival.
This is one of the months in which the number of funds making changes is relatively large – 60 – but the number making dramatic changes is Continue reading →
Every month we track changes to the management teams of equity, alternative and balanced funds, along with a handful of fixed-income ones. Why “a handful”? Because most fixed-income funds are such sedate creatures, with little performance difference between the top quartile funds and the bottom quartile, that the changes are not consequential. Even in the realms we normally cover, the rise of management committees dilutes the significance of any individual’s departure or arrival. This is one of the months in which the number of funds making changes is large – 82 – but the number making dramatic changes is minimal. A couple funds – DWS and Mass Mutual – lost their entire management teams and a couple of funds have announced the impending retirements of long-time managers. Other than that, mostly tweaks this month. Continue reading →
Each month, dozens of funds report manager changes to the SEC. The vast majority of those are inconsequential: one MBA-yielding member of a 12-person management team is popped out and another is popped in. This month’s compendium covers manager changes at 122 funds. That’s a larger-than-normal report mostly because we shared only a compressed list in our June issue, which reflected the competing time demands that Chip faced as she prepared for Ireland.
This month sees few blockbuster moves, though several “A” tier managers are Continue reading →
In the course of the average month, MFO chronicles partial or complete manager changes at 60 – 80 active equity, alternative or balanced mutual funds. We rarely report on changes at passive products or “vanilla” bond funds because, in about 99% of such instances, the changes are inconsequential to the fund’s performance.
This month, changes were reported at only 30 funds – a few low which largely parallels the lull in fund liquidations which we report in our “Dustbin of History” feature. Two of those changes are attendant to the unexpected death of Patrick Flynn, of Neuberger Berman. Mr. Flynn left behind a wife and several young children, for whom we mourn and to whom we Continue reading →
It’s been a quiet but consequential month on the manager change front. While Chip tracked down changes at just 28 funds, barely one-third of what we see in many months, a couple of the changes strike me as worth following.
The unexplained departures of Messrs Cipolloni and Saylor from Berywn Income (BERIX) is a game-changer, and a fund changer. The pair had been managing the fund together for a dozen years with a distinctive Continue reading →
In most months, most manager changes are pretty much inconsequential (except to the managers themselves, I guess). This month, there are a collection of fairly epochal changes.
A star manager, Henry Ellenbogen, is leaving T. Rowe Price and T. Rowe Price New Horizons. It’s really rare for folks to leave Price and rarer still for one of their few high-profile folks to do so. No word on his next stop.
The Bond King, Bill Gross, is giving Continue reading →
There were four notable stories among the 62 sets of manager changes this month. First, the estimable Jenny Jones has announced her plans to retire from Schroder Investment Management where she’s successfully shepherded small cap portfolios for 17 years. That run capped a distinguished 38 year investing career; her departure has led Morningstar to place her funds’ Silver rating “under review.” That’s a normal and healthy development. We wish her great joy in life’s next adventure. Second, Mark Oelschlager is departing Oak Associates on short notice after a stint as co-CIO and portfolio manager. He’s also the son of the firm’s founder, lead manager and CIO, James Oelschlager. The younger Mr. Oelschlager once seemed poised to be the firm’s next leader; now he’s “pursuing other opportunities.” The response when I reached out to the firm was … uh, terse. That seems odd and potentially troubling, given the younger Mr. O’s preference for a more risk-conscious style than his senior’s. Third, Mark Vaselkiv is stepping away from managing T. Rowe Price’s high-yield funds. In general, Price manages these transitions exceptionally well. Finally, Continue reading →
In the course of a normal month we’ll highlight 60-70 manager changes in equity and allocation funds. We mostly skip bond funds because, frankly, it’s a danged rare fixed income team that’s materially affected by the departure of a single individual. In a fairly quiet month, 46 funds and ETFs saw partial or complete team changes.
Chip, who manages our manager changes database, notes that this is one of the first months she’s tracked where more women seemed to be joining management teams than departing them. The academic research is pretty unequivocal: having women Continue reading →
In the course of a normal month we’ll highlight 60-70 manager changes in equity and allocation funds. We mostly skip bond funds because, frankly, it’s a danged rare fixed income team that’s materially affected by the departure of a single individual. In a really quiet month, 40 funds and ETFs saw partial or complete team changes.
By far the most consequential was the announced departure of Zeke Ashton from Centaur Total Return (TILDX), a fund that he’s managed with discipline, style and success since its inception. The folks at Intrepid Capital continue thinning their management team. We reported Jayme Wiggins departure from Intrepid Endurance and Select last month, Jason Lazarus departs Capital and Income this month. Intrepid remains among the few firms maintaining an absolute value discipline in Continue reading →
In the course of a normal month we’ll highlight 60-70 manager changes in equity and allocation funds. We mostly skip bond funds because, frankly, it’s a danged rare fixed income team that’s materially affected by the departure of a single individual. In a really quiet month, 38 funds saws partial or complete team changes. That’s not only half the long-term average but only about a third of the changes reported last month.
By far the most significant, if only symbolically, was the announced retirement of David Poppe at Sequoia Fund (SEQUX). Mr. Poppe was famously a champion of the Valeant investment Continue reading →
Yikes, the world is spinning faster and faster! In the course of a normal month we’ll highlight 60-70 manager changes in equity and allocation funds. We mostly skip bond funds because, frankly, it’s a danged rare fixed income team that’s materially affected by the departure of a single individual. This month, though, brought a record 105 manager changes.
By far the most consequential was the fission of Artisan’s outstanding global value team, which has been nominated six times for Morningstar’s Continue reading →
We monthly report on manager changes, which most commonly is simply swapping out one member of a management team for another. Those changes are sometimes deeply consequential, and we try to highlight those, but mostly they’re marginal to the funds. This month, though, several of the changes are especially important to the folks involved. Montag & Caldwell Growth has announced the departure of Ron Canakaris after a quarter century at the helm. The BP Capital Twinline funds announced the tragic death of manager Anthony Riley. Columbia High Yield Bond manager Jennifer Ponce de Leon is Continue reading →
The revolving door slowed dramatically this month, perhaps because it’s summer and the HR people are away on vacation. In any case, we found manager changes at just 40 funds where 60-80 would be typical. That said, several of the changes are consequential. Ben Inker, head of GMO’s asset allocation team, will no longer manage Wells Fargo Asset Allocation, as they shift subadvisement from GMO to Wells Capital Management. Boniface “Buzz” Zaino, one of the senior managers at Royce, is transitioning out of active management. Rusty Johnson is, for health reasons, stepping back from leadership of Harding, Loevner EM. We wish them all the Continue reading →
At first glance, it appears that about 61 funds saw partial or substantial manager changes this year but more than 40 other funds are masked by our designation “various” in the ticker column. It’s the total Chip uses when she encounters one manager departure that resonates across, say, 20 target date funds or a half dozen funds all calibrated to slightly different levels of risk (Isolde Very Very Conservative Fund, Isolde Very Conservative Fund, Isolde Conservative …).
The most consequential of the changes comes to Ivy Cundill Global Value (ICDAX) where the change of sub-adviser will change the Continue reading →
