There have been previous discussions on MFO about GP’s numerous funds, many closed with relatively small AUM. What I’ve had a hard time grasping is how the PMs are able to keep track of as many as 325 stocks in one fund (Global Reach, for example) while at the same time it appears that these people play roles in the management of other GP funds as well. I also wonder how these variously labeled teams are able to travel to visit what appear to be quite small firms across the globe in the time of Covid.
FWIIW, I own only GUSYX at present. Did own others in the past. Many of the GP funds had double digit % distributions this year, but my fund is under 3%, a holiday gift of sorts.

I have never seen a mutual fund at $35M AUM by choice. I own two of their funds but this is a very strange behavior that is unsettling.

December 16, 2021
Please see below for today’s Press Release announcing the launch of the Grandeur Peak Global Explorer Fund (GPGEX) on Thursday, December 16, 2021.
The Global Explorer Fund will only be available in one share class (Institutional), with a minimum investment of just $1,000 ($100 for minors)* in order to make it broadly accessible to all investors. The Fund should be available through most of our existing channel relationships (Schwab, TD Ameritrade, Pershing, Fidelity, etc.) and it is of course available directly from Grandeur Peak Funds. If you have difficulty purchasing the Fund, please let us know and we will work with you to try to get it listed on your platform.
To learn more about this new fund, call any of us on the client team (contacts below) or our Investor Services team at 1-855-377-7325; Additional information will also be posted to our website: www.grandeurpeakglobal.com.
Best Regards,
Mark Siddoway, CFA, CAIA, MBA
Head of Client Relations
801-384-0010
Todd Matheny, CAIA
Director of Client Relations
801-384-0095
Amy Johnson, MBA, CFP®
Sr. Manager, Client Relations
801-384-0044
*Third-party platforms may impose different minimum requirements.
PRESS RELEASE
Dear Fellow Shareholders,
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Grandeur Peak Global Explorer Fund (GPGEX). The Fund will invest in what the firm believes are the most interesting equity investments around the world. The holdings will primarily be micro to mid-cap companies.
The new fund is a sister fund to the existing Grandeur Peak Global Reach Fund (GPRIX). The two funds share a similar mandate, but they approach portfolio management from a different angle. The Global Reach Fund (launched in 2013) is managed collaboratively by the firm’s five industry teams/portfolio managers, plus a guardian portfolio manager. Similarly, the new Global Explorer Fund will be managed by the firm’s seven geographic region teams/portfolio managers, plus a guardian portfolio manager.
Said Blake Walker, CEO, “In our quest to cover the globe, members of our research team wear multiple hats – some combination of an industry hat, a geography hat, and a fund hat. We long ago divided the world up into industries (5) and geographic regions (7) and gave analysts the charge to find the most interesting companies in their assigned space. The beauty of viewing the world through these two different lenses is that we have at least two people looking at every company, namely the relevant industry analyst and geography analyst. We have found it to be a powerful ‘multiple minds’ tool.”
Juliette Douglas, a geography portfolio manager, and the portfolio manager who will coordinate the Global Explorer team’s efforts, continued, “In hindsight, it could have made sense to launch the Global Explorer at the same time as Global Reach, but candidly we weren’t staffed or ready to do so eight years ago. Today it’s an easy extension for our team and the geographic paper portfolio we have managed for some time. We expect Reach and Explorer will look fairly similar given our collaborative approach, but we also believe there will be a very real benefit in putting our geography PMs at the helm of their own fund. Those benefits will play out in the Global Explorer Fund and also radiate through the rest of the Grandeur Peak Funds. The geography teams are thrilled at this opportunity.”
Grandeur Peak has from day one shown a very strong commitment to managing capacity at a firm level, and closing funds early. With many of the Grandeur Peak Funds currently closed, Todd Matheny, Director of Client Relations, commented on the capacity of the new Fund: “With the Global Explorer Fund focused on our more capacity-constrained micro to mid-cap space, we plan to soft close the Fund around $35M in AUM. We are excited about this Fund, and the strategic value it adds across our entire family of funds, but we intend to close it very small to ensure all of our funds retain the investment flexibility they need to remain focused on delivering performance for our clients.”

As a long term owner of two Primecap funds (at either end of the so-called risk spectrum) I have some concerns. The obvious one is relative performance: all of the Primecap funds seem to have under-performed their benchmarks -- as well as "the market" -- over the past five years, some over the past ten (especially when taxes are taken into account). I regard that as a moderate length of time, sufficient to capture my attention. When it comes to the riskier funds (in my case POAGX), I seem to see some very off-beat names in the top 25 holdings, although I'm certainly not privy to the research resulting in those buy decisions. Of far greater concern to me is the fact that the team at Primecap appears to lack any notion of a "sell" discipline. The concept of a "target price" seems alien to them. On many occasions in the recent past the market has literally gifted stocks in the portfolios with sudden, unwarranted, and ultimately temporary price increases that Primecap rarely takes advantage of. (Examples include BABA, BIIB, NKTR, SGEN, but there are quite a few in addition.) What to do? I decided to take this year's hefty capital gains distributions (attributable to shareholder redemptions) in cash. Based on preliminary information, it looks like most Odyssey fund shareholders did the same thing yesterday. The Vanguard funds haven't made their distributions yet.

The SEC is proposing changes to MMFs. There are three key pieces (plus an enhanced reporting requirement):

1. Increase liquidity - this could potentially decrease yields, but since yields are already at 0.01% and positive only because of subsidies, we're unlikely to see them go any lower.
   
2. Remove the gating/fee requirements on fund redemptions. This is the change that appears most significant for retail investors - one will no longer have to worry about being able to get money out of prime or muni MMFs without paying a redemption fee.
   
3. Implement swing pricing on institutional funds. Not going to explain this, since it affects only institutional MMFs.

The fact sheet seems to be the best place to start.
Press release: https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-258
Full text of proposal (325 pages): https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2021/ic-34441.pdf
Fact sheet: https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed/2021/ic-34441-fact-sheet.pdf
If you want to submit a comment to the SEC, you can do so here:
https://www.sec.gov/rules/proposed.shtml (look for Money Market Reforms and its submit comments link)

So for those, like me, who don't understand a single word of that, what does it mean to the individual computer user? What should we avoid doing?

This vulnerability mostly impacts enterprises and will keep security teams busy for quite some time.
If your hardware/applications don't use Apache Log4J versions 2.0 - 2.15.0 you are not at risk.
The Netherland's National Cyber Security Centrum (NCSC) posted a comprehensive A-Z list of all products it is aware are either vulnerable, not vulnerable, or under investigation.

.....And once again, here on Oahu: new crap is happening: cyberattacks vs. Queen's Health System, the municipal Board of Water Supply and Honolulu EMS. These despicable motherlovers must be caught and made to SUFFER.
https://www.kitv.com/news/crime/bws-ems-employees-warned-of-possible-identity-theft-after-hackers-target-payroll-vendor/article_a5caee94-5c76-11ec-bd0b-a3979031a6b6.html

I have done withdrawals from IL 529 sent to beneficiary - easy. States oversee 529 but the services are from the fund companies.
As there are thousands of colleges and universities, all 529s may not be ready to handle sending funds directly to institutions. But what would be the benefit of that? In fact, funds may be lost in institutional jungle.
On the other hand, people can send personal funds directly to institutions to pay bills for their kids (and others, if so inclined) and a benefit is that those funds don't count for the annual gift limits.

@dstone42, your 529 plan is administrated by your state who sponsors the 529 plan. Not familiar specifically with TRP's 529 plan. Withdrawing 529 fund to pay for "Qualified College Expense" is straightforward. Several options you can do:
https://savingforcollege.com/article/how-to-pay-your-college-tuition-bill-with-a-529-plan
We chose to have the fund sent to us (account owner) to pay for tuition and room & board, and NOT to the university. By year end, a 1098-T Form you receive will only include the tuition. What is not included are Room & board, books, and computer supplies. Depending on the university, the housing billing is separated from the tuition billing. I like to keep these qualified expenses separately for accurate tax reporting purpose.

M* star-ratings are purely based on past performance in the category and are backward-looking. So, no judgements are required for 5* ratings for BST and BME. There are no forward-looking M* Analyst ratings for BST (Technology) or BME (Health).
Both M* Technology and Health categories are tiny.

I have been lucky in that when I re-established my download capability, all the transactions came through OK. A lot of people on the Quicken discussion boards report the same problem though. Look for "Schwab CC_501 Loop" or other Schwab transaction error threads.
Worried about Quicken security given this major snafu, I deactivated "share with Quicken " on the SChwab website ( Service- Security) REactivating today Schwab downloads worked, but none of Fidelity or Vanguard did
Had to go in and deactivate/reactivate all of those

@JonGaltill: right, BST is a BlackRock closed end science and tech fund, but it does have a global portfolio. Of its 3 managers, 1 also serves on BME, the Health Sciences CEF that has done well previously, although it has done little to merit its M* 5 star rating in recent years.

I own BME and it's been solid in my view. No concerns about that one ... not to go off-topic but I'm fairly impressed with how Blackrock allocates for their CEFs.

Interesting and useful discussion.
there are a lot of option hedged vehicles available. I have been satisfied with JHQAX and GATEX; both are close in preformance.
Simplify Asset management has a number of relatively new option based ETFs that closely match these hedges.
HEQT has a ladder of puts and call, aiming to ameliorate anything greater than a 5% loss in SP500, similar to JHQAX
SPD and CYA are others to look at
For the intellectually curious, I would recommend Harvey Bassman's blog
https://www.convexitymaven.com/
He produces a very detailed analysis of the usefulness of options to hedge volatility and inflation. Most of it is over my head, but it will give you a lot to think about and many of the Simplify ETFs are based on these ideas

@JonGaltill: right, BST is a BlackRock closed end science and tech fund, but it does have a global portfolio. Of its 3 managers, 1 also serves on BME, the Health Sciences CEF that has done well previously, although it has done little to merit its M* 5 star rating in recent years.

There 'Sales Charge' is $35 compared to Fido's $49.95 so that's better.
As I understand it, that's $35 to buy or to sell, as opposed to Fidelity's fees, which range from a high of $75 (to buy shares of Vanguard, Schwab, and D&C funds), to $49.95 to buy most other TF funds, to $0 to sell shares of any fund. Adding to an existing TF fund position at Fidelity can be done with most funds for $5 (via automated investing).
While there are some investing patterns for which TRP would come out less expensive, for most patterns Fidelity winds up costing significantly less.
With respect to the signature guarantee requirement, changing title (ownership) of assets is tantamount to withdrawing assets and giving them to someone else. Change of control (including the ability to withdraw assets). Which is why institutions generally require POAs to be guaranteed.
As yogi said, it's all for protection, though that may be more for protection of the institution than for protection of you.

What I experienced was exasperating and not well handled, but it was the exception.
So long as transactions have been ordinary and haven't deviated one iota from the norm, I've not had problems. But once one introduces even the slightest variation, that opens the door to errors, which in the worst case as here can cascade out of control.
The variation I introduced was to invest in a closed TRP fund. If one wants to blame the victim (me), I did have a single clue that TRP wasn't fully set up to handle this.
Online, one can usually prepare an IRA transfer form into TRP funds. But not into closed funds, even if one is an eligible investor. (In contrast, eligible investors can invest in a closed fund online via an internal fund exchange.) So something weird was going on with the IRA transfers to closed funds.
I'll have to reread hank's recounting of his problems to see if there was anything "unvanilla" there or if TRP simply botched a run-of-the-mill transaction.
My point is that I would not be too concerned about how TRP handles certain 529 plan withdrawals. That's precisely what these plans are set up to do. But I might watch carefully over a less common type of transaction or one new to TRP.
For example, TRP says one cannot currently, online, initiate a payment directly to a school. It might not be wise to be first in line to try this out when it becomes available.

Why isn’t there an online process to initiate a distribution payment directly to a school?
We are always working to enhance the options available to our account holders and hope to offer this service in the future. For now, you will need to call our College Savings Specialists at 866-521-1894 or complete a Distribution form and mail it in.

https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/troweprice-529/frequently-asked-questions.html

Yogi - you do understand that I wasn't withdrawing the money, only re-titling the ownership under terms of the trust. Also, I have $1.5M ADDITIONAL money in my account which they could have used as collateral. What is one supposed to do if they don't have an account at a commercial bank or brokerage house?

Now I'm worried. As I said above, I have 529 accounts at TRP for two grandsons. Fairly soon they'll be headed off to college.
How hard might the withdrawal process be!!
David

Be aware of the degree of liability that is in place to protect YOU.
If there is fraud, the Notary doesn't have any monetary liability. He/she may lose Notary license at best, or may just get a warning/reprimand from state.
Signature Guarantee, which is SAME as Medallion Signature Guarantee, has monetary liability with it. In case of fraud, the Signature Guarantor at credit union/bank/broker is liable for up to the insurance.
You may not care when things work fine. But if someone swindled you out of your $500K, you may think differently.
Actually, the Rep at Price did you a HUGE favor after talking to her superior(s) and also being reassured that you were really YOU. Just give it a few days.
Each firm has its own policies and limitations. Next time for Signature Guarantee, try banks or brokers (credit unions don't handle half-million worth of transactions routinely).

I saw this post by accident, and I would like to share my recent TRP experience by repeating the comment I sent to them:
" I'm writing this in hope that it will be forwarded to someone with the authority to act upon it.
My wife and I had an AB Living Trust. Upon her death, as permitted in the trust, I chose to disclaim her half of the trust value, and create an Irrevocable Trust. I received an new EIN for Trust A of the Living Trust, as recommended by my attorney.
I contacted T. Rowe Price, and after many discussions with the Life Change Events people, I was able to fill out the forms to retitle two of my accounts, valued at $500,000, to the Irrevocable Trust A. Now the fun began.
Your Ownership Change form requires a Medallion Signature Guarantee. The credit union
where I do my banking could only guarantee up to $100,000. Of the five commercial banks I tried, four turned me away outright because I didn't have an account, the fifth said they could, but their limit was $250,000. I came home unsuccessful after spending the entire afternoon in the rain.
I called T. Rowe Price, and got to speak to a very sympathetic Jenna Johnson. I explained my anger and frustration over the situation. I said I was able to retitle accounts worth $2,000,000 at Vanguard, online and on the phone, in less than an hour, without even a notary. Jenna put me on hold for a short time, then came back to say Price would waive the Medallion Guarantee and accept a notarized signature. She gave me a case number to write on the form.
Why does T. Rowe Price still ask for a Medallion Signature Guarantee in an era when many people bank at CU's, or online entirely, and can't qualify for one? It's an archaic form of identification in the 21st century. If Vanguard can do business without it, why can't Price?"
It's been a week, and I haven't received an acknowledgement, let alone a response.