Brain Surgery

Morningstar reported in its "Fund Times" column that, on June 1, 58-year-old Daniel Vrabac will retire from Ivy Funds [profile]. Vrabac co-PMs the two-star, $289.3-million Ivy Global Bond Fund and the two-star, $878.5-million Waddell & Reed Global Bond Fund [profile]. His co-PM, Mark Beischel, will become the sole PM for the pair of funds.

Morningstar reported in its "Fund Times" column that DWS is replacing formerly in-house quant shop and sub-advisor QS Investors with in-house management for several funds, starting this month with DWS' own Owen Fitzpatrick taking over the two-star, $3.1-billion DWS Core Equity Fund and Joseph Axtell taking over the two-star, $81.5-million DWS Small Cap Core Fund. In July DWS will take over the five LifeCompass target date funds, and Martin Berberich, Nils Ernst and Sebastian Werner will take over the two-star, $66.3-million DWS Diversified International Equity Fund. Also starting in July, the three-star, neutral-rated, $391.1-million DWS Disciplined Market Neutral Fund will be sub-advised by Fidelity's Pyramis Global Advisors and Henderson Alternative Investment Advisor, with DWS' Fitzpatrick handling the final piece.

Morningstar reported in its "Fund Times" column that Tim Parker — PM of the three-star, neutral-rated, $4.6-billion T. Rowe Price New Era Fund [profile] — will leave T. Rowe, ultimately to be succeeded by analyst Shawn Driscoll on September 30.

Births

Morningstar reported in its "Fund Times" column that, as expected, this week Matthews [profile] launched the Matthews Asia Focus Fund and the Matthews Emerging Asia Fund.

Parnassus Investments [profile] has launched the Parnassus Asia Fund.

Plastic Surgery

American Century [profile] revealed that on May 31 it will drop disgraced cyclist hero Lance Armstrong's charity brand, LiveStrong, from the American Century target date funds. Their new brand will be the One Choice Portfolios, a brand they will share with the mutual fund shop's target risk funds.

Pregnancies

iShares [profile] has registered the MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF.

USAA Investments has registered the USAA Target Retirement 2060 Fund.

Deaths

iShares [profile] is liquidating the iShares Diversified Alternatives Trust.



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