Vanguard Announces Investment Manager Changes
Joseph Brennan, who served as the firm’s Asia Pacific chief investment officer (CIO) in Australia since 2009, will return to the U.S. to lead the equity index group. He will oversee the investment professionals responsible for more than 80 U.S. and international equity index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), representing nearly $1 trillion in indexed assets. Prior to his Australian post, the 12-year Vanguard veteran managed the portfolio review department.
Gregory Davis, head of the bond index group since 2007, will assume the Asia Pacific CIO role, as head of the Vanguard Australia team, which manages equity and fixed-income portfolios for Australian and Asian investors and has nearly $64 billion in assets under management.
Josh Barrickman, a 14-year Vanguard staff member with more than ten years of experience in bond indexing portfolio management and trading, has assumed leadership of the bond index group. He previously managed bond index funds with aggregate assets of $90 billion and led Vanguard’s bond ETF management process since the 2007 inception of fixed-income ETF shares. Barrickman has been named a manager or co-manager on 13 funds, including the flagship $115 billion Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund.
(Cont’d…)
John Ameriks will oversee the active equity group within the equity investment group. Previously a member of Vanguard’s investment counseling & research group (IC&R), he assumed leadership of the division in 2008 and has been closely involved in the structure and implementation of several active and index investment products and strategies. The active equity group manages $13 billion in quantitative equity fund assets, serving as investment adviser to Vanguard Strategic Equity Fund and Vanguard Strategic Small-Cap Equity, as well as managing portions of 10 other Vanguard stock funds.
Catherine Gordon, a veteran investment professional who created IC&R in 2001, will reassume leadership of this group, as well as help to lead Vanguard’s initiatives on advice methodology and focus on institutional investment thought leadership. Since she joined Vanguard in 1994, Gordon spent several years with the portfolio review department and directed Vanguard institutional advisory services.
Separately, Vanguard announced new portfolio management assignments involving 15 equity funds, 11 fixed income funds, two balanced funds and the Vanguard Target Retirement Fund series. The changes are effective with the February 22 filing of prospectus amendments that detail the leadership and portfolio manager assignments. The funds’ investment philosophies, objectives, strategies and overall portfolio management processes will remain the same.