T. Rowe Price Shuffles Managers

On Monday, T. Rowe Price announced manager changes on three funds,

On Dec. 31, 2016, Rob Sharps, who has been the skipper of T. Rowe Price Institutional Large Cap Growth since the end of 2002, will step down from that fund and join T. Rowe Price's management committee, serving as the co-head of global equity alongside the firm's current head of international equity, Chris Alderson, who has been at T. Rowe Price for 26 years.

Until the end of the year, Sharps, 44, will make all investment decisions on T. Rowe Price Institutional Large Cap Growth. Starting June 30, T. Rowe Price Health Sciences manager Taymour Tamaddon will step down from that fund and shift to Sharps' large-cap growth equity strategy team, succeeding Sharps outright on Jan. 1, 2017. A 12-year T. Rowe Price veteran, Tamaddon, 39, only has been at the helm of T. Rowe Price Health Sciences since succeeding Kris Jenner in February 2013, but he has continued Jenner's previous strong track record on the fund, outpacing more than nine out of every 10 healthcare funds in the Morningstar Category in the three-year period ended Jan. 31.

T. Rowe Price Health Sciences' new manager will be Ziad Bakri, who on April 1 will join the fund as comanager. On July 1, Bakri, a medical doctor who has been a healthcare analyst at T. Rowe Price since 2011 and previously was a biotech analyst at Cowen and Co., will become the fund's sole manager. The firm also announced that it plans to hire additional team members on its healthcare research team, including a biotech analyst.

One other unrelated manager change was at T. Rowe Price New America Growth. On April 1, Dan Martino, who has been the fund's sole manager since 2013, will step down and join T. Rowe Price's large-cap value team, working alongside current team members. The move is a surprising one, given Martino's short tenure on New America Growth and his experience as a growth investor. Succeeding Martino will be Justin White, who has been an analyst at T. Rowe Price since 2008, covering cable and satellite, Internet infrastructure, and U.S. telecom firms. The two-month transition period on T. Rowe Price New America Growth is unusually short by T. Rowe Price standards.

We are placing the Morningstar Analyst Ratings for T. Rowe Price Institutional Large Cap Growth and T. Rowe Price New America Growth under review.