Author Archives: Chip

About Chip

Cheryl Welsch, MBA (Western Governors). Cofounder, technical director. Chip is the chief information officer and chief information security officer for the Eastern Iowa Community Colleges. Chip is responsible for making the Observer actually happen; in cooperation with our graphic designer, she also controls how the Observer looks and acts, and whittles away at the monthly typofest in our drafts.

Manager changes, December 2018

By Chip

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 →

Manager changes, November 2018

By Chip

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 →

Manager changes, October 2018

By Chip

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 →

Manager changes

By Chip

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 →

Manager changes, July and August 2018

By Chip

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 →

Manager changes, June 2018

By Chip

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 →

Manager Changes

By Chip

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 →

Manager changes

By Chip

There are an exceptional number of manager changes this month, our partial recounting here finds 72 funds with changed teams. The tally is partial because we tend to exclude vanilla bond funds and index funds from the tally, since the managers in such funds make relatively modest differences in the funds’ performance.

Two departures seem worth note. Anthony Cragg is stepping down from Wells Fargo Asia Fund Fund (WFAAX) after a Continue reading →

Manager changes, April 2018

By Chip

There were more than 57 funds that modified their management teams this month; the “more than” reflects the fact that one manager was pulled off literally uncounted Global X funds. While few of the changes are immediately consequential, several signal an impending changing of the guard. John B Walthausen, now in his 70s, has added a co-manager to the two Walthausen funds. Billy Hwan is joining Jerome L Dodson, also in his 70s, as co-manager of Parnassus Endeavor. Moving in the opposite direction, Thomas Marsico is moving to pick up responsibility for another fund, Marsico Flexible Capital, after several Continue reading →

Manager changes, February 2018

By Chip

Sixty-two funds saw partial turnover in their management teams but no high profile manager stalked off or was shown the door, and no rising star was awarded a new charge. Actually there were rather more than 62, since we don’t track boring bond funds (the value added by the third manager on a Massachusetts muni fund is modest enough that we don’t track those teams; sorry, guys) and, this month only, we’re boycotting changes in the Dreyfus funds. Frankly, Dreyfus got annoying. Their announcements show up in the SEC filings under a bunch of labels (including dozens of Dreyfus series, CitizensSelect, Advantage Funds and Strategic Funds) and were poorly written. We ended up with a headache and the decision to share the following announcement: “about a dozen Dreyfus funds shifted teams this month; if you invest with them, you might want to Continue reading →