THEY GROW UP SO FAST

On March 15, Westwood Funds [profile] revealed that the five-star Westwood Income Opportunity Fund passed $1 billion in assets. The mutual fund debuted on December 19, 2005. As of February 28, 2013, according to Morningstar, Income Opportunity made up more than half of Westwood's $1.805-billion in non-money-market mutual fund assets.

WEDDINGS

Morningstar reports that Prudential [profile] plans to merge the two-star, $172.9-million Prudential Target Growth Allocation Fund into the four-star, bronze-rated, $3.3-billion Prudential Jennison Equity Income Fund.

Morningstar reports that Lord Abbett [profile] plans to merge the two-star, $636.4-million Lord Abbett Small Cap Blend Fund into the three-star, neutral-rated, $2.2-billion Lord Abbett Value Opportunities Fund, following the departure last month of Small Cap Blend PM Michael Smith.

BRAIN SURGERY

Morningstar reports that Prudential [profile] plans to drop Marsico Capital Management [profile] as large cap equity sleeve sub-advisor for two target risk mutual funds, the Prudential Target Conservative Allocation Fund and the Prudential Moderate Allocation Fund.

Morningstar reports that Winslow Capital promoted Patrick Burton to co-PM of New York Life's three-star, bronze-rated, $17.9-billion MainStay Large Cap Growth Fund [profile], which Winslow sub-advises. Meanwhile, on July 1 another co-PM of the fund, senior managing director Bart Wear, will retire from Winslow.

Federated [profile] revealed that, on April 15, 27-year company veteran, bond fund guru and senior vice president Joseph Balestrino will leave the mutual fund shop and step down as PM of several mutual funds, including: the four-star, $7.5-billion Federated Total Return Bond Fund; the $121.8-million Federated Unconstrained Bond Fund; the three-star, $1.6-billion Federated Strategic Income Fund; the three-star, $390.3-million Federated Intermediate Corporate Bond Fund; and the five-star, $1.7-billion Federated Bond Fund. He also PMed slices of the Federated Global Allocation Fund, the Federated Capital Income Fund, and the Federated MDT Balanced Fund. Senior vice president Donald Ellenberger will take over Total Return Bond, SVP Mark Durbiano will PM Strategic Income, vice president Brian Ruffner will PM Bond, VP Bryan Dingle will PM Intermediate Corporate Bond, and SVP Ihab Salib will PM Unconstrained Bond. Reuters reported on the changes.

Morningstar reports that Pioneer [profile] replaced Sean Taylor as PM of the one-star, $287.4-million Pioneer Emerging Markets Fund. The mutual fund is now PMed by Marco Mencini, Mauro Ratto and Andrea Salvatori, all of whom were already with Pioneer. Taylor still serves as part of Pioneer's emerging markets analyst team.

Morningstar reports that next month MFS [profile] will add Jonathan Sage to the PM team for the three-star, bronze-rated, $6-billion MFS Total Return Fund. Sage already helps PM the MFS Equity Income Fund, the MFS Blended Research Core Equity Fund and the MFS Diversified Income Fund. On Total Return he joins a team that includes Nevin Chitkara, William Douglas, Steve Gorham, Richard Hawkins, Joshua Marston and Brooks Taylor.

According to Morningstar, MFS will also add Ward Brown as a co-PM for the two-star, $331.4-million MFS Strategic Income Fund and the four-star, $1.6-billion MFS Diversified Income Fund. Brown already works on the MFS Emerging Markets Debt Fund and the MFS Emerging Markets Debt Local Currency Fund. For Strategic Income, he joins a team that includes William Adams, James Calmas, David Cole, Robert Persons, Matthew Ryan and Erik Weisman. The Diversified Income PM team includes William Adams, David Cole, Richard Gable, Matthew Ryan, Jonathan Sage (see above entry), Geoffrey Schechter and James Swanson.

Morningstar also reports that Robert Persons will leave the three-star, silver-rated, $5.1-billion MFS Utilities Fund. He will leave the mutual fund in the hands of co-PM Maura Shaughnessy, who has PMed the fund since inception.

PREGNANCIES

State Street [profile] has filed to launch the SPDR Barclays 0-5 Year TIPS ETF and the SPDR Barclays 1-10 Year TIPS ETF.

PowerShares [profile] has has filed to launch the PowerShares Global Select Short Term Bond Portfolio.

WisdomTree [profile] has filed to launch the WisdomTree U.S. Dividend Growth Fund and the WisdomTree U.S. Small Cap Dividend Growth Fund.

BIRTHS

On March 12 the Shelton Capital Management [profile] team quietly launched their 13th mutual fund, the Shelton Green Alpha Fund. Green Alpha Advisors sub-advises the new fund, and Jeremy Deems and Garvin Jabusch PM it.

On March 13 Barclays Bank debuted the Barclays ETN+ Select MLP ETN on the NYSE Arca. The new ETN tracks the volume weighted average price of the Atlantic Trust Select MLP Index.

Salient Partners [profile] has launched the Salient Pure Trend Fund.

Global X Funds [profile] has launched the Global X SuperDividend U.S. ETF .

THE PARTY'S AT CAPACITY

Morningstar reports that on April 8 Prudential [profile] will close the four-star, bronze-rated, $8.4-billion Prudential Jennison Mid Cap Growth Fund to new investors.

On April 8, Touchstone [profile] will close the five-star, silver-rated, $2.7-billion Touchstone Sands Capital Institutional Growth Fund,the five-star, bronze-rated, $4.3-billion Touchstone Sands Capital Select Growth Funds, and the $455.9-million Touchstone Merger Arbitrage Fund to new investors.

Oppenheimer [profile] has closed the five-star, silver-rated, $33.3-billion Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund [see MFWire's full article].



Check back as we continue to update this column throughout the week.

If you have a mutual fund launch or product change that you would like to announce, contact the MFWire team at editors@investmentwires.com. 

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