American Funds Changes Multiple Portfolio Managers

In addition to those retirements, David Daigle will no longer manage the $13.7 billion Capital World Bond Fund and Wahid Butt is off the $45.4 billion American Funds New York fund, but both portfolio managers remain at the firm.

American Funds is among the largest actively managed fund companies, with over $1.8 trillion in assets.  

A spokeswoman noted that due to the firm’s system of multiple managers per fund, “changes to the portfolio manager lineup are less disruptive to the overall strategy than they would be in a single‐manager system. A manager’s departure or addition happens in an orderly manner, as each fund or strategy is built around a team of decision‐makers.”

According to the SEC filing on these changes, the new managers for the funds mentioned are as:

• Jessica Spaly and Cheryl Frank, equity managers, AMCAP Fund
• Mark Casey and Anne Marie, Peterson, equity managers, American Balanced Fund
• Ritchie Tuazon, fixed income manager, American Balanced Fund 
• Bradford Freer, equity portfolio manager, Global Balanced Fund
• Mathews Cherian and Irfan Furniturewala, equity managers, Fundamental Investors Fund
• Alex Popa, equity portfolio manager, The Growth Fund of America
• Tomoko Fortune, and Reed Lowenstein, equity managers, The New Economy Fund 

All but The New Economy Fund and the Fundamental Investors Fund were included in Morningstar’s 2019 “Thrilling 34″ funds chosen from a universe of about 8,000 funds for their relatively low expense ratios, high analyst ratings, above-benchmark returns and investments of more than $1 million by portfolio managers, among other criteria.

— Check out How Vanguard Overhauled a Prime Money Fund on ThinkAdvisor.