The team at a publicly traded brokerage's 2,500-employee, $637-billion-AUM (as of December 31) asset management arm is celebrating a big milestone for one of their actively managed, taxable fixed income mutual funds.

William F. "Ted" Truscott Columbia Threadneedle CEO

Earlier this month, Ron Stahl, head of the $8.4-billion-AUM short duration and stable value team at Ameriprise's Columbia Threadneedle Investments [profile], highlighted the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Columbia Ultra Short Term Bond Fund. The fund's birthday was March 8.

The Columbia Ultra Short Term Bond Fund is a series of Columbia Funds Series Trust I. Since its inception in 2004, the fund has grown to $1.075 billion in AUM (as of February 29, 2024).

The 20-year-old fund currently comes in four flavors: A shares (CUSOX), with an expense ratio of 46 basis points; Advisor shares (CUSHX), for 31bps; Institutional shares (CUSBX), for 31bps; and Institutional 3 shares (CMGUX), for 24bps.

Columbia Management Investment Advisers, LLC serves as investment advisor to the fund. Its PM team includes senior portfolio manager Gregory Liechty (who has PMed the fund since 2016) and senior PM Stahl (who has PMed the fund since 2015). The Columbia Threadneedle team notes that Stahl and Liechty are backed up by the fund firm's team of more than 80 credit analysts around the world (more than one tenth of the firm's global team of more than 650 investment professionals).

"Columbia Ultra Short Term Bond Fund offers a potentially attractive alternative for investors who seek liquidity and capital preservation by providing exposure to higher-yielding, high-quality bonds at the short end of the curve with low volatility relative to its benchmark," Stahl states.

The Columbia Ultra Short Term Bond Fund's other service providers include: Columbia Management Investment Distributors, Inc. as distributor; Columbia Management Investment Services Corp. as dividend disbursing agent, shareholder servicing agent, and transfer agent; J.P. Morgan as custodian; Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP as counsel to independent trustees; PwC as independent accounting firm; and Ropes & Gray LLP as counsel to the trust. 

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