Fallen angels: “The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Atlanta-based Angel Oak Capital Advisors, LLC and its portfolio manager Ashish Negandhi for misleading investors about the firm’s fix-and-flip loan securitization’s delinquency rates. Angel Oak and Negandhi have agreed to settle charges and pay a penalty of $1.75 million and $75,000, respectively” (sec.gov, 8/10/22). Angel Oak advises a series of mutual funds whose activities, so far as we can tell, are completely unaffected by the SEC action. That said, it’s not a good look.
An initial registration filing has been filed for the Harbor Health Care ETF. The fund intends to invest in companies principally engaged in the research, development, production, or distribution of products and services related to the healthcare industry. No expenses have been stated at this time. The portfolio managers will be William A. Muggia and Matthew R. Renna.
David Marcus, the CEO of Evermore Global Advisors and manager of the two-star Evermore Global Value Fund (EVGBX), has opened a “family office” on behalf of the family of Michael Price. Mr. Price was Mr. Marcus’s mentor from their years together at the Mutual Series funds (later bought by Franklin Templeton), where Mr. Price practiced, and Mr. Marcus studied “special situations” investing. That often translated to pursuing investment related to opportunities too unusual or too complex for most investors to contemplate. Mr. Price died in March 2022 at the age of 70. Mr. Marcus’s fund has been spectacularly independent of the market (which is good) but not consistently rewarding.
Bill Nygren will focus more on domestic investing with the Oakmark Select and Oakmark Funds and cease managing the Oakmark Global Select Fund effective the end of 2023. As a result of the change, the Oakmark Global Select Fund will get two new co-managers: Colin Hudson and John Sitarz. Robert Bierig will be added as a co-portfolio manager to the Oakmark Fund with Bill Nygren and Michael Nicolas.
Robert Bierig and Alex Fitch will become co-portfolio managers of the Oakmark Select Fund alongside Bill Nygren and Tony Coniaris.
Effective December 31, 2023, Clyde McGregor will be transitioning his portfolio management duties and stepping off the Oakmark Equity and Income Fund and the Oakmark Global Fund. Mr. McGregor will remain with Harris Associates as an investment leader and portfolio manager for the firm’s private wealth management business
The Tocqueville Opportunity and The Tocqueville Phoenix Funds will be reorganized into the Tocqueville Fund. The reorganization is expected to occur on or about November 18. Robert W. Kleinschmidt will remain as the portfolio manager of the Tocqueville Fund.
Several Touchstone Strategic Trust Funds will be undergoing a reverse stock split in October 2022. The “C share class” of the following funds: Touchstone Growth Opportunities, Touchstone Mid Cap Growth, Touchstone Non-US ESG Equity, Touchstone Small Company, and Touchstone Sands Capital Select Growth. The reason for the reverse stock split was due to better alignment with the NAVs of the fund’s other share classes.
A registration filing has been filed for the Vanguard Global Environmental Opportunities Stock Fund. Total annual operating expenses will be .75% for the investor class shares; admiral class will be .60%. The fund will invest in a global portfolio of stocks of companies located in a number of countries throughout the world, including developed and emerging markets. The portfolio managers will be Deirdre Cooper and Graeme Baker.
SMALL WINS FOR INVESTORS
The SEC is starting to make some potentially useful moves in the direction of reining-in “greenwashing” to strengthen whistleblower protections and requiring better climate impact disclosures by corporations. All good, give or take the details. Otherwise, a quiet month on the Good News front!
Old Wine, New Bottles
361 Domestic Long/Short Equity and 361 Global Long/Short Equity Funds will be reorganized into corresponding funds of the Allspring Funds Trust (part of the Wells Fargo family). Each of the corresponding Allspring Funds will have a substantially similar investment objective, investment strategy, and fundamental investment restrictions as its corresponding 361 fund.
Bridgeway Associates has proposed converting their billion-dollar, three-star Omni Tax-Managed Small-Cap Value Fund in an ETF, EA Bridgeway Omni Small-Cap Value ETF. The conversion will entail “the transfer of all of the property, assets, and goodwill” of the fund sometime early in 2023. (The Bridgeway Funds are divided into four Select Funds, which are managed with a strategy based on multi-factor diversification, and four Omni Funds which offer broad diversification within a specific segment, although only two actually bear that name.)
Effective September 23, 2022, the small-cap Empiric 2500 Fund becomes the small-cap Empiric Fund. It switches benchmarks from the Bloomberg 2500 Index to the MSCI USA Small Cap Index.
Great Lakes Funds is reorganizing three of its funds on or about December 10, 2022: Great Lakes Disciplined Equity Fund into the Cambiar Opportunity Fund, Great Lakes Large Cap Value Fund into the Cambiar Opportunity Fund, and Great Lakes Small Cap Opportunity Fund into the Cambiar Small Cap Fund.
Great Lakes has previously reorganized its Great Lake Bond Fund with Weitz Core Plus Income Fund in July 2021.
Several Inspire Funds will change their name, effective August 22, removing the ESG:
Inspire Global Hope ESG ETF to Inspire Global Hope ETF;
Inspire Small/Mid Cap ESG ETF to Inspire Small/Mid Cap ETF;
Inspire Corporate Bond ESG ETF to Inspire Corporate Bond ETF;
Inspire 100 ESG ETF to Inspire 100 ETF;
Inspire International ESG ETF to Inspire International ETF, and
Inspire Tactical Balanced ESG ETF to Inspire Tactical Balanced ETF.
The Board of Trustees has approved changes to the Fund’s name, objectives, strategies, and benchmark to the Janus Henderson Dividend & Income Builder Fund. The new name will be the Janus Henderson International Dividend Fund seeking income for the potential for capital growth. These changes will take place on or about October 28, 2022.
Nuveen International Growth Fund is being reorganized into the TIAA-CREF International Opportunities Fund. Voting on the reorganization is expected to be held in early October 2022, with the reorganization expected to occur approximately 15-30 days after the special shareholder meeting.
On October 24, 2022, the passive WisdomTree CBOE S&P 500 PutWrite Strategy Fund becomes the equally passive WisdomTree PutWrite Strategy Fund, tracking a new index.
CLOSINGS (AND RELATED INCONVENIENCES)
AdvisorShares North Square McKee ESG Core Bond ETF will be liquidated on or about September 7.
The American Beacon Bahl & Gaynor Small Cap Growth Fund will liquidate on or about October 14, 2022.
BNY Mellon Tax Sensitive Total Return Bond Fund will be liquidated on or about November 17.
Champlain Emerging Markets Fund will be liquidated on or about September 23, 2022.
Defiance Next Gen SPAC Derived ETF and Defiance Next Gen Altered Experience ETF were liquidated on or about August 30.
A whole series of Direxion ETFs, some modestly silly and others just very badly out-of-step with the market, hence unattractive to fickle investors, will be liquidated on September 23, 2022.
Direxion Daily Cloud Computing Bear 2X Shares (CLDS)
Direxion Daily 5G Communications Bull 2X Shares (TENG)
Direxion Russell 1000® Growth Over Value ETF (RWGV)
Direxion Russell 1000® Value Over Growth ETF (RWVG)
Direxion World Without Waste ETF (WWOW)
Direxion Fallen Knives ETF (NIFE)
Direxion Low Priced Stock ETF (LOPX)
DriveWealth Power Saver and DriveWealth Steady Saver ETFs were liquidated on or about August 31.
John Hancock Absolute Return Currency Fund will undergo a change in which its subadvisor is being acquired. The transaction is expected in the fourth quarter of 2022. In order to understand the potential impact of the transaction, the fund will be closed to new investors as of September 6, 2022.
JPMorgan U.S. Dividend and U.S. Minimum Volatility ETFs will be liquidated on or about September 14.
JPMorgan Macro Opportunities Fund will be liquidated on or about October 13.
Premise Capital Diversified Tactical ETF will be liquidated on or about September 7
Tactical Moderate Allocation Fund will be liquidated on or about September 16.
