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Vanguard Dividend Growth Manager Stepping Down

edited March 2023 in Fund Discussions
"Vanguard Dividend Growth VDIGX has officially begun a leadership transition, the firm announced on March 23, 2023. Effective Jan. 1, 2024, manager Donald Kilbride will step down from the strategy’s helm, and comanager Peter Fisher will step up. The strategy, which carried a High People rating, a High Process rating, and a Morningstar Analyst Rating of Gold, has been placed under review."

"Kilbride has no plans to separate from the firm or retire from the industry after January 2024.
He will remain on Wellington’s dividend-growth team and continue leading Vanguard Advice Select Dividend Growth VADGX, which is a more concentrated version of this strategy available to clients enrolled in certain Vanguard advisory programs."


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Comments

  • edited March 2023
    Excerpted from The Independent Vanguard Adviser :

    "Since Kilbride took over the fund in Feb. 2006, he has outperformed the market with less risk and beat his in-house index competition, Dividend Appreciation Index (VDADX), to boot. To put some numbers it, since April 2006 (the launch of the index fund competitor), Dividend Growth’s 9.8% annual return was 0.9% per year better than the 8.9% annual gains generated by both 500 Index (VFINX) and Dividend Appreciation Index. The fund held up better than the market during the Global Financial Crisis, the COVID panic and the current bear market."

    "I expect Fisher will continue the approach Kilbride took while helming Dividend Growth — this should still be a portfolio of companies that produce a steady and growing stream of dividends. It’s not about getting the highest yield, but about owning companies that pay out a larger and larger dividend with each passing year."

  • edited March 2023
    Kilbride may be around 60 - not that old. He has high positions at Wellington Management (WM) - Partner, Managing Director (MD), portfolio manager. Vanguard has setup a smaller, similar and more concentrated fund for him - VADGX, AUM $318.1 million, ER 0.45%, only 28 holdings (vs 41 for VDIGX), inception 11/9/21. It's advisor-only fund and Schwab shows as NA and it isn't part of Fido NTF (so, no competition with VDIGX). It seems to me that Kilbride will be around Wellington Management handling VADGX, helping Fisher, and may be other even higher things at WM. It doesn't look like he is moving into a retirement community.
  • edited March 2023
    @Observant1 and @yogibb, Thanks for the info. VDIGX is a fund I invested in for a long time and will continue to do so.
  • edited March 2023
    Here is the SEC filing concerning his departure. Notice the name of the "project" on top of the filing.

    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/734383/000168386323002522/f24809d1.htm

    It used to state "fall out boy".

    Noticed they just changed the "project" in prior link:

    https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/734383/000168386323002584/f24877d1.htm
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