Lifestyle and lifecycle funds are all the rage these days in the mutual fund industry, but not everyone is hopping on the bandwagon. Ken Ziesenheim, president of Thornburg Securities, is happy to buck the trend.

"Not all fund companies are going after the lifestyle funds," Ziesenheim said in an interview with the MFWire. “Being willing to not follow the crowd is innovative."

That stance is rapidly making Santa Fe-based Thornburg a rarity, but Ziesenheim doesn't mind. "We've explored [lifestyle funds], but we've made the decision to stick with what we're good at."

Ziesenheim has nothing against lifecycle funds, though. "They attract a broader base, encouraging people to invest who normally wouldn't," he admitted. However, "That’s typically not our clientele."

Instead, Thornburg specializes in serving individual investors seeking advice to help them build customized portfolios. This means the company focuses on what Ziesenheim calls the "investment fundamentals."

"We know what we do," he said. "We don’t do anything exotic or crazy. We only offer focused-equity funds." Ziesenheim cites Thornburg's laddered-bond funds as an example. "We've done funds like this for over 20 years," he noted. "They're so well-positioned that we're going to continue to focus on that."

Thornburg also has a new fund on the horizon, the Thornburg Global Opportunities Fund. "We go where the value is, anywhere around the globe," Ziesenheim explained. According to the fund’s prospectus filed with the SEC on May 12, the Global Opportunities Fund will seek "long-term capital appreciation by investing in equity and debt securities of all types from issuers around the world."

The fund will have two classes of shares, Class A and Class C, with total annual operating expenses of 2.33 percent and 3.08 percent each, respectively. Brian J. McMahon and Vinson Walden will serve as co-portfolio managers; McMahon, who has been with Thornburg for 22 years, currently serves as president of the Thornburg Investment Trust and as president, managing director, and chief investment officer of Thornburg Investment Management. Walden currently serves as a vice president and managing director of Thornburg.

Pending SEC approval, Thornburg hopes to launch the fund sometime in July.

 

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