John Hancock's decision to close its $7 billion Classic Value Fund is the subject of Monday's Fund Track in the Wall Street Journal. The fund will close to new investors on September 15 and will remain open to investors in 401(k) and 529 college savings plans.

Though Hancock is closing the fund, it is not cutting new investors off from the talents of its subadvisor, New York City-based Pzena Investment Management. In July, the insurer opened a second fund featuring Pzena with the quite straightforward name of Classic Value Fund II to keep shareholders from losing their way from one fund to the other.

The namesake fund had been a top seller, with its assets growing to $5 billion from just $3 billion at the start of the year, according to data published by Morningstar.

Hancock is one of Pzena's core clients. All told, the subadvisor manages just over $19 billion in assets for institutional clients. Both of the funds invest in large cap stocks, though the original fund typically holds a concentrated portfolio of 25 to 45 stocks culled from the nation's 500 largest companies by market cap. The new fund will select from among the 400 largest stocks. 

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