One of BlackRock's Longest-Serving Mutual Fund Managers To RetireOne of BlackRock's Longest-Serving Mutual Fund Managers To Retire
Dennis Stattman, who turns 66 this month, will return in August.
June 13, 2017
By Trevor Hunnicutt
NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - One of BlackRock Inc'slongest-serving mutual fund managers, who is responsible fortens of billions of dollars in investors' money, is steppingdown.
Dennis Stattman, who has run what is now BlackRock's largestmutual fund for more than 28 years, will retire from his role atthe BlackRock Global Allocation Fund inAugust, according to an internal memo on Tuesday.
The fund currently has $40 billion in assets undermanagement.
Stattman, who turns 66 this month, is "confident that thetime is right to complete a carefully planned process oftransitioning management of Global Allocation to the team hebuilt," according to the memo signed by two top BlackRockexecutives, Rob Kapito and Rich Kushel.
A BlackRock spokesman said Stattman was not available tocomment.
The retirement is the latest sign of a changing order atBlackRock, a bellwether for an industry challenged by investors'flight to lower-cost products. The world's largest assetmanager, BlackRock also offers relatively low-fee index fundsthrough its iShares brand.
The New York-based company has also been handing over moreresponsibilities from its traditionalist stockpickers to itsdata-crunching quantitative investors in a bid to boostperformance. In March, the company announced a formalrestructuring that cut fees and some portfolio managers.
Merrill Lynch & Co started the Global Allocation Fund in1989 as the market was still clawing back from losses in the1987 Black Monday market crash. Merrill sold that investmentmanagement business to BlackRock, then a much smaller company,in 2006.
The fund is a "multi-asset" portfolio of stocks, bonds andother investments, pitched as offering strong returns andprotection from market swings.
Relatively low-cost institutional shares of the fund havereturned nearly 10 percent a year since the fund started 28years ago, beating most of its few surviving rivals.
During the financial crisis in 2008, the fund beat most itspeers and managed to take in new cash from investors. Yet GlobalAllocation has recorded about $25 billion in withdrawals since2012, according to Thomson Reuters' Lipper research unit.
The fund's other four portfolio managers - Dan Chamby, RussKoesterich, David Clayton and Kent Hogshire - will all continuein their roles. Chamby is a veteran at the fund's helm, whileKoesterich, Clayton and Hogshire were elevated to portfoliomanager roles earlier this year.
They will continue to manage a sprawling team of more than50 people who focus on the fund, including analysts, traders andmarketing personnel.
Stattman will continue as an adviser to the asset manager'sMulti-Asset Strategies Group, which oversees the fund, accordingto the memo.(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by JenniferAblan and Tom Brown)
