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Dodge & Cox to Launch New Fund

Global fund will draw on firm's team- and value-oriented philosophy.

Dodge & Cox is going global.

The unassuming San Francisco fund family that normally prefers to avoid attention, made news for the second time this month by filing plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week for the new Dodge & Cox Global Stock Fund. The filing comes barely two weeks after Dodge & Cox decided to reopen its  Stock (DODGX) and  Balanced (DODBX) funds, which had been closed for four years.

The new fund is somewhat of a surprise, even though principals of the firm had intimated in recent years that they were considering a global offering. That's because Dodge & Cox has rarely introduced new funds. In nearly eight decades of existence, the family has introduced just five funds, including the new global offering. When the firm does roll out a new fund, it usually does so only after years of in-house testing, as it did before launching  Dodge & Cox International (DODFX) in 2001.

The new Dodge & Cox Global Stock will use the firm's trademark team- and value-oriented philosophy to select stocks from around the world, according to the filing. It will invest in mid- to large-sized companies of at least three different countries that look undervalued or out of favor according to a variety of metrics, but that still have good prospects for long-term revenue, earnings, and cash flow growth, according to the filing. This approach has produced superb long-term returns at the family's other funds. The fund will not have many geographical restrictions, but it will keep at least 40% of its assets in non-U.S. companies, the filing said.

The new fund's management team is stocked with seasoned domestic and international stock-pickers. The six-member investment policy committee includes firm Chairman and CEO John Gunn, firm CIO Charles Pohl, Diana Strandberg, Lily Beischer, Karol Marcin, and Steven Voorhis. Each member has more than five years of experience with Dodge & Cox, and most of them have more than 10 years of experience at the family. Gunn, Pohl, and Strandberg, for example, serve on the investment policy committees of the Dodge & Cox Stock and Dodge & Cox International Funds. Pohl also serves as director of credit research and a member of  Dodge & Cox Income's (DODIX) investment policy committee. Voorhis has served on the stock fund team, too.

The new fund will charge a 0.90% expense ratio, considerably less than the nearly 1.6% average for the typical world stock fund (including all share classes), and could open for business in late April or early May, according to the prospectus. Those fees as well as the experience, discipline, and sound culture of the advisor should make this a competitive offering right out of the starting blocks.

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