City Research Online

Abstract

Using a unique database of UK fund manager changes over the period from 1997 to 2011, we examine the impact of such changes on fund performance. We find clear evidence to suggest that a manager change does affect the benchmark-adjusted performance of UK mutual funds. In particular we find a significant deterioration in the benchmark-adjusted returns of funds that were top performers before the manager exit and, conversely, a significant improvement in the average benchmark-adjusted returns of funds that were poor performers before the manager exit. Our use of the Carhart's (1997) four-factor model reveals that the improvement in average post manager exit performance is accompanied by a reduction in market risk, a slight reduction in exposure to small cap stocks, and an increase in exposure to value and momentum stocks. Overall, our results suggest that UK fund management companies have been relatively successful in replacing bad managers with better managers, but relatively unsuccessful at finding equivalent replacements for their top performing managers. We believe that regulators should therefore try to ensure that all efforts are made by fund management companies to inform all of their investors about a change in management.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in International Review of Financial Analysis. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in International Review of Financial Analysis, Volume 35, October 2014, Pages 167–177, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.irfa.2014.08.005.
Publisher Keywords:	UK mutual fund performance; Fund manager exit
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Finance
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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