American Funds Changes Multiple Portfolio Managers
The changes follow the recent or pending retirements of several longtime fund managers.
Capital Group is changing portfolio managers at a number of its American Funds mutual funds as a result of retirements.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that was first reported by Citywire, portfolio managers Claudia Huntington and Eric Richter are no longer managing the firm’s $72.3 billion AMCAP Fund as of Oct. 1.
In addition, Richter is off the $20.6 billion American Funds Global Balanced Fund, while Huntington no longer manages the firm’s $26.8 billion New Economy fund.
Huntington has retired after 47 years with American Funds; Richter retires on Nov. 30 after 21 years.
Michael Kerr, who was with American Funds for 34 years, has also retired from the firm, where he was a portfolio manager of the firm’s $169 billion American Balanced Fund, the $225 billion Growth Fund of America and the $103 billion Fundamental Investors Fund.
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.