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Has anyone decided not to invest or pull out of Artisan Funds since the Company went public? And if so, what were your main reasons, if any, other than the propensity to focus on gathering assets to propel their stock price.
I haven't seen any negative effects; the one A. fund I hold is still closed, the E.R.'s unchanged, and the managers haven't been tasked with running any new funds.
To date, I have seen nothing to indicate any problems at all. Artisan continues to have a very strong group of managers. Except for their emerging markets fund, all the others have done a good job of balancing risk and reward. We have owned ARTMX, ARTQX, and ARTVX in one client group or another for ages. And just when folks thought ARTIX manager Mark Yockey had 'lost it', he came roaring back with top-decile performance in 2011-2012.
Too, the function of going public was, in part, to give Artisan more flexibility (they were paying off some external debt and generating cash to buy out some of the founders' stake) so they'd be able to retain their best young talent.
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David