Hank Herrmann is tweaking Ivy Funds' branding.

Hank Hermann Waddell & Reed Financial Chairman, Chief Executive Officer

Today Herrmann reveals that Overland Park, Kansas-based Ivy Funds' new name will be Ivy Investments [profile]. Along with the name change, Ivy's logo is getting an upgrade, though the mutual fund firm's "The World Covered" tagline is remaining unchanged. And Ivy Funds Distributor becomes Ivy Distributors.

"We will continue to distinguish our brand by emphasizing our global research and market coverage," states Herrmann, CEO of Ivy's publicly-trade parent, Waddell & Reed Financial [profile].

Thomas W. Butch Ivy Funds Distributor, Inc. President and Chief Executive Officer

Tom Butch, president and CEO of Ivy Distributors, says that the new "single brand umbrella 'Ivy Investments' reflects the steps taken over several years to broaden Ivy's product line beyond U.S. retail mutual funds, reaching new clients and addressing the evolving needs of existing clients."

Lori Dorsey, senior vice president and director of marketing at Ivy, says that they "have been working toward this [brand shift] for quite some time."

"Ivy has long offered products beyond retail mutual funds, so the Ivy Funds moniker was limiting in that regard," Dorsey tells MFWire, adding that this is "a natural progression of Ivy's brand."

Watch for Ivy's new website, IvyInvestments.com, to go online tonight. Over the next six to twelve months, Dorsey says, Ivy's institutional and global businesses will also be shifted into the new website.

Dorsey and her also had outside help on the branding project.

"We work with Swandog Strategic Marketing, Dave Swanson, out of Chicago," Dorsey says, adding that they first worked with Swandog back in 2011.

Ivy Investments

Under Swanson's direction, Dorsey adds, Ivy also worked with 50,000 Feet on the project.

All of Waddell, which includes Ivy, had about $104 billion in AUM as of December 31. 

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