Frank Russell Canada Ltd., along with its global affiliates, has selected Montag & Caldwell, Inc., an Atlanta-based money management firm, to manage a portion of its U.S. large-cap growth equity mutual fund assignments in Russell’s global funds complex, involving Canada, the United States, and Europe. The assignments are part of Russell’s multiple-manager process.

The eight U.S. equity assignments, which combined represent about US$675 million are the first in Russell’s funds complex for Montag & Caldwell. The Russell funds affected by this manager addition have total combined assets under administration of approximately US$8.4 billion.

“Montag & Caldwell is highly regarded as a consistent growth manager that offers significant structural and return pattern diversification to the other managers within the growth segment of these funds,” said Dennis Trittin, portfolio manager at Russell, in a news release. “We expect to further improve performance consistency in a wider array of market environments with the addition of this manager.”

The Canadian-based assignment involves a multi-manager investment pool available to Canadian investors, the Sovereign US Equity Pool. Within this Pool, Montag & Caldwell replaces Alliance Capital Management Canada, and joins nine other managers, including two other growth managers. Currently the Sovereign US Equity Pool has approximately US$325 million under management.

“We expect to further improve performance consistency, given that the new manager will allow this pool to enhance its diversification potential in terms of portfolio characteristics, market coverage, and return patterns,” said Timothy Hicks, Chief Investment Officer of Frank Russell Canada.

Four of Montag & Caldwell’s assignments involve funds that are available to U.S. investors, including the FRIC Equity I fund, the FRIC Diversified Equity fund, and Russell’s Multi-Style Equity Fund, which is available to investors through Northwestern Mutual’s network of financial professionals in the U.S. Russell also selected Montag & Caldwell for an assignment in the FRTC Equity I fund, which is available only to qualified employee benefit plan investors in the United States.

Three additional assignments for Montag & Caldwell involve products domiciled in Europe: The MSMM U.S. Equity Fund, which is available to French investors, the Frank Russell Investment Company Plc. U.S. Equity Fund (Ireland), which is available to non-U.S. investors in the United Kingdom and other markets, and the Frank Russell Asset Management U.S. Equity Fund L.P.

Each year, Russell evaluates more than 1,500 outside investment manager teams globally as part of a continual research process. Of these, about 110 managers are selected for specific assignments within Russell’s multiple-manager funds.