Fund Times: Big Management Changes at Janus

Janus Capital Corporation on Thursday announced the resignation of two long-tenured managers: Blaine Rollins and Claire Young, effective June 30. In February 2006, David Corkins replaced Rollins as manager of the firm's flagship $11 billion  Janus Fund , and Rollins was moved to the smaller ($147 million) Janus Triton  (JATTX). Research analysts Brian Schaub and Chad Meade will take over at Triton.

Young, manager of   Janus Olympus   since September 1997, had fared better in her charge, despite having wildly volatile returns during the tech boom and bust years. Ron Sachs, of  Janus Orion  (JORNX), will replace her. He will continue to manage Orion, where he's delivered good returns in recent years following a rough start in the bear market.

MFS Introduces New Income-Oriented Fund
MFS Investment Management recently announced the upcoming launch of the MFS Diversified Income Fund, which is designed to both provide income to investors and combat inflation's erosion of invested capital. Chief investment strategist James Swanson, who will be assisted by a quantitative asset-allocation group within the firm, will manage the fund. The fund will shift between five distinct asset segments: high yield, government, and emerging markets bonds; real estate investment trusts; and domestic value stocks. The firm's intention here is to provide income through asset class sectors that have low performance correlations with one another, and in this way provide both income and capital appreciation.

Keeley Says: You better cut the pizza in four pieces, as I'm not hungry enough to eat eight
 Keeley Small Cap Value  , managed by John Keeley Jr., will undergo a 2-for-1 share split, according to a statement released by Keeley Asset Management Corp., the fund's advisor. Fund share splits of this kind have no benefit to shareholders whatsoever, and typically the only reason to split a fund is for marketing purposes (since many novice investors tend to be attracted to funds with lower NAVs).

Keeley also announced it is launching Keeley All Cap Value. Like Keeley's other charge, the All Cap fund will focus on the stock of companies he believes are undervalued and are undergoing corporate restructurings of some kind. According to the press release, this situation will include corporate spin-offs, distressed companies, and others undergoing similar changes.

ING International Fund Gets New Management
 ING International's  longtime managers, Richard Saler and Philip Schwartz, have departed this mutual fund, and have been replaced by Uri Landesman, according to an ING regulatory filing. Saler and Schwartz had run the fund for over a decade, and while their long-term record was quite respectable, the fund's performance had fallen on hard times recently. Indeed, the fund suffered bottom-quartile performance in two of the past three calendar years. The fund's steep 1.65% expense ratio doesn't help matters here, of course.

Landesman, who joined ING from Federated Investors, where he served most recently as director of global equity research, has also previously worked at Arlington Capital Management and Sanford Bernstein and Co.

Van Kampen Fund Changes Name
The board of  Van Kampen Emerging Growth   has recently approved a change in the fund's moniker, which will now be Van Kampen Strategic Growth. While the term "strategic" is a bit vague, we think the change makes sense, particularly since the term "emerging" implied that the fund invested in smaller, little-known companies--market sectors the fund has been moving away from. The fund's sizable $4.7 billion asset base eventually made positions in less-liquid smaller-cap stocks less tenable for the offering.

SEC Requires Greater Transparency on Fund-of-Funds Fees
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently adopted rules that aim to provide more transparency in the charges of fund-of-funds investment companies. The rule requires a fund of this type to "disclose in its fee table the cumulative amount of expenses charged by the fund and any fund in which it invests," according to the statement. This would also include lightly regulated hedge funds, which may end up providing an interesting window into the weighty fees these lightly regulated investments charge. Overall, the impact of the rule for investors may be small, because most funds of this kind already report in this way.