(January 9 – 17:30 ET) – Mackenzie Financial Services Inc. today announced the addition of another leading portfolio management team to the Universal Select Managers Fund, Universal Select Managers Capital Class and, indirectly, the Universal RSP Select Managers Fund.

In early February, Heather Manners and Will Garnett, both of London-based Henderson Global Investors Limited, officially join the funds’ existing five management teams.

“Since the launch of these funds, five portfolio management teams have applied their expertise to select and combine their best investment ideas for the portfolios,” said David Feather executive vice president, Mackenzie Financial Services Inc. “With the addition of Heather Manners and Will Garnett, we have added a sixth set of specialists to an already impressive team.”

Manners and Garnett specialize in Pacific investments, including the Far East and Japan, and have excellent reputations and long-term experience in their respective fields.


“The spirit of our Select Managers approach, in which talented investment management teams select the best stocks in their field of expertise, remains unchanged,” said Phil Cunningham, president, Mackenzie Financial Services Inc. ”

Manners, a director at Henderson, was named Fund Manager of the Year in the U.K. in 1999, for a top-rated Far East ex-Japan fund, according to Standard & Poor’s Micropal. She is gead of Pacific and Emerging Markets at Henderson and one of five managers directing Mackenzie’s recently launched Universal Select Managers Far East Capital Class Fund.

Garnett, a director of Japanese Equities at Henderson and head of their Japanese Equity Team, has specialized in Japan since 1986. He manages a variety of funds for Henderson, including the highly successful Seligman Horizon Japanese Fund. He is also one of five contributing managers to Mackenzie’s recently launched Universal Select Managers Japan Capital Class Fund.

Manners and Garnett comprise the sixth management team for Universal Select Managers Fund, which includes experts from top-flight management companies worldwide, including their colleague Stephen Peak, also of Henderson. The team also includes Peter Cundill of the Cundill Group, Paul Baran and Jim Broadfoot of Mackenzie Investment Management Inc. in the United States, and Brian Ashford Russell, who will be moving from Henderson to establish his own firm, Polar Capital Partners Limited.

To facilitate the addition of Henderson’s Pacific team, the proportion of assets managed by Brian Ashford-Russell will be reduced from approximately 20% of the fund to 10%. Ashford-Russell’s investment style and strategy will remain unchanged, in selecting securities from a universe of technology stocks around the world, considering both company specific factors as well as emerging trends in the technology sectors.
-IE Staff