What Management Changes Mean for Dodge & Cox Funds

As it often does each January, Dodge & Cox recently announced plans for investment-team changes over the next 12-18 months. This year's announcement included key upcoming retirements and minor changes to its deep, experienced investment committees. The moves are consistent with the firm's careful succession planning and build upon groundwork laid in the past two years. As such, the transitions should be smooth, so the Dodge & Cox funds retain their People and Parent Pillar ratings and their respective Morningstar Analyst Ratings.

Two senior leaders plan to retire in the next 18 months. CIO and chairman Charles Pohl, who joined Dodge & Cox in 1984, will leave in June 2022. He will gradually step away from his duties, coming off the international- and global-equity investment committees in May 2021 and handing his chairmanships (of the firm and fund board) to CEO and president Dana Emery in spring 2022. Pohl will remain on the U.S. equity committee until his departure. Bryan Cameron, the firm's director of research and a member of the U.S. and international-equity investment committees, will bring his 38-year tenure at Dodge & Cox to a close at the end of 2021.

Pohl and Cameron have already handed some duties to successors named in January 2019. Pohl's CIO title will fall to associate CIO David Hoeft on Jan. 1, 2022. Hoeft has worked up through the ranks since joining Dodge & Cox in 1993, serving as an analyst, sector committee head, and member of the U.S. and global-equity investment committees. Associate director of research Steve Voorhis will take the reins from Cameron as full director in April 2021. Voorhis, who started at Dodge & Cox in 1996, has served as an analyst and member of the U.S. and global-equity investment committees. Both will stay on those committees after assuming their new roles.

Three investment committee changes keep those teams well stocked. With Cameron and Pohl leaving the U.S. equity investment committee in the next year and half, the firm promoted Karim Fakhry to the team on Jan. 15, 2021. He joined the firm in 2005 and has covered biotech, pharmaceuticals, and appliances. He also heads the healthcare and consumer sector committee that feeds ideas to the investment committees. Meanwhile, Paritosh Somani, analyst for IT hardware/services and mining and head of the tech, media, and telecom sector committee, joined the international-equity investment committee on Jan. 15 ahead of Pohl's departure in May. Finally, Ray Mertens will rejoin the global-equity investment committee in May. He was on that committee from 2014 to 2018 before joining the international-equity investment committee to build up his expertise in non-U.S. stocks over the past three years. He will remain on the international team after May.

Retirements like those of Pohl and Cameron would be big news at most firms, but Dodge & Cox's investment-committee structure eases concerns, and its record of gradual transfers of responsibilities to successors identified and groomed in advance sets a standard for managing transitions.