MutualFundWire.com: A Babson Prof Enters the Mutual Fund Biz
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Friday, December 10, 2010

A Babson Prof Enters the Mutual Fund Biz


Babson College professor Joel Shulman has rolled out a mutual fund focusing on entrepreneurial companies. The EntrepreneurShares Global Fund launched November 11.

Shulman, an associate professor who holds the Robert F. Weissman Term Chair of Entrepreneurship at Babson College, put together a team this year that includes alums from Leuthold Weeden Capital Management and FundQuest.

The fund comes in three share classes: A (with an expense ratio of 195 basis points), Retail (195 bps) and Institutional (170 bps). [SEC filing]

Weston Capital Advisors is the investment adviser. EntrepreneurShares LLC is the sub-adviser to the Entrepreneur Series Trust. Shulman formed Weston and EntrepreneurShares this year.

U.S. Bancorp Fund Services serves as the fund's administrator, fund accountant and transfer agent, U.S. Bank is the custodian and Rafferty Capital Markets is the distributor.

The strategy used in the mutual fund is the same one that Shulman has been using for five years in a separately managed account. The strategy, he said, generated an annualized rate of return over 11 percent for the past five years.

"In the academic research I've done, what we consider entrepreneurial companies outperformed non-entrepreneurial companies," he said. "People said to us, "You're running an SMA. Why don't you create a mutual fund?'"

Shulman also thought about going the ETF route, but ultimately decided on delivering his strategy in a mutual fund vehicle.

In February of this year, David Cragg, a former chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Leuthold, joined Shulman's firm as chief financial officer. The team also includes former FundQuest sales executive Robert Peatman, who joined as director of sales, Vikram Kondur from Innova Securities as senior associate and Daniel Dalet as director of international operations.

Former National Financial CEO Norman Malo is among the advisors to EntrepreneurShares.


Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=35377

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