Toronto-based CI Investments Inc. announced portfolio management changes and name changes to a number of mutual funds Thursday.
The changes are effective on or about Nov. 30.
The affected funds include: Cambridge American Equity Fund, Cambridge American Equity Corporate Class, CI American Managers Corporate Class, Select U.S. Equity Managed Corporate Class, CI Pacific Fund, CI Pacific Corporate Class, Sentry All Cap Income Fund, Sentry Global Investment Grade Private Pool Class, and Signature Tactical Bond Pool.
Sentry Investment Management will take over portfolio management for two funds, Cambridge American Equity Fund and Cambridge American Equity Corporate Class, from Cambridge Global Asset Management. Aubrey Hearn has been named lead portfolio manager and Jack Hall will serve as a co-manager. The funds will be renamed CI American Equity Fund and CI American Equity Corporate Class, respectively.
Cambridge’s portions of the CI American Managers Corporate Class and Select U.S. Equity Managed Corporate Class portfolios will be transitioned to Sentry. Hall will be lead portfolio manager and Hearn will co-manage these.
Cambridge has decided to relinquish these mandates to focus their U.S. equity research on their dividend strategies, CI says in a news release.
“Following the decision by Cambridge, CI selected Sentry and the team led by Aubrey Hearn for these mandates based on their extensive expertise in U.S. equities,” Neal Kerr, CI’s executive vice president, says in a statement. Hearn has more than 15 years of financial industry experience, CI says. He was named Investment Executive’s Mutual Fund Manager of the Year in 2015.
Signature Global Asset Management will assume portfolio management responsibilities for CI Pacific Fund and CI Pacific Corporate Class. It will replace Epoch Investment Partners, Inc., and Matthew Strauss will serve as lead portfolio manager. The funds will be renamed, respectively, Signature Asian Opportunities Fund and Signature Asian Opportunities Corporate Class.
Signature will replace Sentry as portfolio manager of Sentry Global Investment Grade Private Pool Class. John Shaw will become lead portfolio manager.
Signature Tactical Bond Pool will be renamed Signature Core Bond Plus Fund.
Bryan Brown of Sentry has been named a co-manager of Sentry All Cap Income Fund, joining executive portfolio manager Michael Simpson.
Separately, CI Financial Corp., the parent company of CI Investments, reported preliminary assets under management (AUM) of $130 billion and total assets of $172.5 billion as of Oct. 31.
AUM dropped by 9.6% year over year and by 4.8% in October. Total assets fell by 7.2% for the 12-month period, and 4.6% in October. These results reflect broader market returns for the month. During October, the S&P/TSX composite index declined 6.5% and the S&P 500 index was down 5.4% in Canadian dollars.