MutualFundWire.com: A Vanguard Veteran Passes the Baton

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Tuesday, October 8, 2013

A Vanguard Veteran Passes the Baton

The Odyssey of Mitch Milias is coming to a close.

Milias, co-founder and chairman of PRIMECAP Management Company [profile], a long-standing subadvisor for Vanguard [profile], will relinquish his portfolio management duties at the end of 2013, Vanguard has reported.

He is a portfolio manager with the $36.2 billion Vanguard PRIMECAP Fund, the $5.8 billion Vanguard PRIMECAP Core Fund, and the $574.8 million Vanguard Variable Insurance Fund’s Capital Growth Portfolio. He has been a manager of the PRIMECAP Fund since 2002 and of the PRIMECAP Core Fund since its inception in 2004.

His responsibilities will be taken over by his co-PMs: Joel P. Fried, Theo A. Kolokotrones, Alfred W. Mordecai, and M. Mohsin Ansari. Some of these responsibilities will also be handed over to the analyst team.

Milias was one of the people who founded PRIMECAP Management Company in 2013, along with Theo Kolokotrones, who serves as president, and Howard Schow, who passed away in 2013. Forbes paid homage to Schow in this article.

MFWire articles featuring Milias include this story, as well as this one.

PRIMECAP manages Vanguard's PRIMECAP Fund, the Vanguard Capital Opportunity Fund, and the Vanguard PRIMECAP Core Fund. It also manages PRIMECAP ODYSSEY FUNDS. PRIMECAP Management Company is an employee owned investment manager. It invests in value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies and employs a fundamental analysis to create its portfolios.

PRIMECAP oversees $80 billion in assets, including $54.88 billion for Vanguard. It had launched its own family of funds in 2004.

Here is the press release:

Company Press Release
VANGUARD FUND MANAGER MITCH MILIAS TO HAND OVER PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES

VALLEY FORGE, PA, (October 8, 2013)—Vanguard announced today that Mitch J. Milias—a portfolio manager with the $36.2 billion Vanguard PRIMECAP Fund, the $5.8 billion Vanguard PRIMECAP Core Fund, and the $574.8 million Vanguard Variable Insurance Fund’s Capital Growth Portfolio—will relinquish his portfolio management responsibilities at the end of 2013.

The portions of the funds managed by Mr. Milias will be assumed by the funds’ co-managers, Joel P. Fried, Theo A. Kolokotrones, Alfred W. Mordecai, and M. Mohsin Ansari, who collectively have 100 years of investment management experience. A portion will also be allocated to analysts in the firm’s research department.

Mr. Milias, the co-founder and chairman of PRIMECAP Management Company, will remain with the firm in a management and client relationship role. He has been a manager of the PRIMECAP Fund since 2002 and of the PRIMECAP Core Fund since its inception in 2004. “I speak on behalf of Vanguard and our investors in expressing our gratitude to Mitch Milias for his care and stewardship of client assets, and for providing superior returns over the long term,” said Vanguard Chairman Bill McNabb. “While this is a natural progression, Mitch has been an integral part of the PRIMECAP team, and we will miss him. We have full confidence in the talented co-managers and analysts at PRIMECAP who will oversee these funds going forward.”

Many of Vanguard’s actively managed funds are managed externally, giving investors access—at Vanguard's low costs—to 31 premier institutional money managers from around the globe. When evaluating potential and current external managers, Vanguard emphasizes qualitative criteria, including quality and stability of the team, enduring nature of investment philosophy, and process consistency, in addition to long-term performance and other quantitative factors. (See attachment for the performance of Vanguard’s PRIMECAP Fund and PRIMECAP Core Fund.)

Founded in 1983, PRIMECAP Management Company of Pasadena, California, is a privately owned investment advisory firm that serves clients in the corporate, endowment, and foundation market. The firm oversees $80 billion in assets, including $54.88 billion for Vanguard.

About Vanguard

Vanguard, headquartered in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, is the world’s largest mutual fund company and one of the world’s largest investment management companies, managing nearly $2.3 trillion in U.S. fund assets and more than $2.5 trillion in global assets. The firm offers more than 160 funds to U.S. investors and more than 80 additional funds in non-U.S. markets. For more information, visit vanguard.com.