MutualFundWire.com: American Beacon Takes Over a Large Value Fund
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Monday, February 6, 2012

American Beacon Takes Over a Large Value Fund


Say goodbye to the Bridgeway Large-Cap Value Fund [profile]; long live the American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund [profile]. Last month MFWire.com reported that Fort Worth, Texas-based American Beacon was about to adopt four mutual funds, including the four-star, $28.0-million Bridgeway Large-Cap Value [see MFWire.com, 1/12/2012], and on Friday American Beacon filed the official N-1A for the brand new American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund [filing].

Houston-based Bridgeway Capital Management stuck around, serving now as the sub-advisor for the American Beacon version of the fund. Bridgeway manages 13 other non-money-market, no-load mutual funds with a combined $1.5 billion in assets. Bridgeway founder and chief investment officer John Montgomery described the adoption as a way for his firm to "offer its long-term, successful investment strategy to a much larger pool of investors."

Gene Needles, president and CEO of American Beacon, praised the Bridgeway team for their "commitment to putting investors' needs first" and "highly disciplined approach." He confirmed that this fund is the first collaboration between American Beacon and Bridgeway and the 21st fund from American Beacon.

"We're looking for under-distributed investment excellence," Needles told MFWire.com, noting that, since launch, the Bridgeway fund has bested its Morningstar category in 85 percent of all month periods. "That's unbelievable consistency."

"They're evidence-based investors, without the detriments we see with other quantitative managers," Needles explained, contrasting Bridgeway's "multi-model" strategy with other quant managers' "multi-factor" models. "This is clearly a horse a different color here. It's not following the herd mentality that you find with so many of the quantitative managers out there."

"They have a much longer time horizon. They're not looking for a quick win," Needles added. "They're very shareholder-conscious ... They're very cost-conscious in these funds."

Watch for Needles to team up with Bridgeway again.

"We would like to," Needles said, raising the possibilities of creating new mutual funds with Bridgeway. "We're exploring other avenues there."

The new version of the fund offers five share classes: A shares for 575 basis points in load and 134 bps in annual expenses; C shares for 100 bps in deferred load and 209 bps annually; institutional shares for 84 bps annually; investor shares for 122 bps annually; and Y shares for 94 bps annually.


Company Press Release

FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 6, 2012 -- American Beacon Advisors ("American Beacon"), an experienced provider of investment advisory services to retail and institutional clients, is pleased to announce the addition of the American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund (Institutional Class Ticker: BRLVX) to its established family of mutual funds.

The large-cap value strategy employed in the Fund was first launched by Houston-based Bridgeway Capital Management, Inc. ("Bridgeway") on October 31, 2003, and seeks to outperform the Russell 1000 Value Index over the long term. As of December 31, 2011, the Fund held four-star overall, three-year and five-year ratings from Morningstar based on risk-adjusted returns. The Fund was rated among 1,127 large-cap value funds overall and 1,127 and 996 large-cap value funds for three and five years, respectively.

"By partnering with American Beacon, Bridgeway can offer its long-term, successful investment strategy to a much larger pool of investors," said John Montgomery, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Bridgeway, which remains the Fund's sole sub-advisor. "By strictly adhering to evidence-based stock selection with multiple proprietary statistical models, we believe we can serve investors' interests well during such an uncertain economic climate."

The Fund seeks to provide long-term total return of capital via capital appreciation and some income. Bridgeway has successfully achieved this objective by using a statistically driven, evidence-based investment strategy, which involves gathering public data to drive stock selection, maximizing downside protection via the use of multiple multi-factor models, maintaining a low portfolio turnover to reduce trading and operating expenses and to help preserve investor capital, and pursuing a highly repeatable investment process to minimize overall risk.

"American Beacon shares Bridgeway's commitment to putting investors' needs first, and as such, the investment process practiced by the American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund fits into our overall strategy very well," said Gene L. Needles Jr., American Beacon President and CEO. "We hope investors will take advantage of the highly disciplined approach and the prospect of lower overall risk associated with this fund."

About American Beacon Advisors

Established in 1986, American Beacon Advisors, Inc. is an experienced provider of investment advisory services to institutional and retail markets. American Beacon Advisors serves defined benefit plans, defined contribution plans, foundations, endowments, corporations and other institutional investors, as well as retail clients. The firm also provides corporate cash management and fixed-income separate account management.

American Beacon Advisors manages the American Beacon Funds, a series of low-cost mutual funds. The funds employ a "manager of managers" investment style and currently include international and domestic equity, fixed income and money market funds. As of December 31, 2011, American Beacon Advisors had $43.9 billion in assets under management.

About Bridgeway Capital Management, Inc.

Bridgeway Capital Management, Inc., a Houston-based investment management firm, was formed in 1993. Bridgeway offers expertly designed investment building blocks to select institutions and advisors. Statistically driven and grounded in academic theory, Bridgeway's disciplined investment process reflects a passion for evidence, data and logic. Putting investors' long-term interests first is the cornerstone of the firm's unique culture and core business values of integrity, performance, cost efficiency and service.

Bridgeway is committed to making a positive impact within the community at large. Bridgeway donates 50% of its investment advisory profits to non-profit organizations.

You should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fund carefully before investing. The prospectus and summary prospectus contain this and additional information regarding the Fund. To obtain a prospectus or summary prospectus, please contact your financial advisor, call 1-800-967-9009 or visit www.americanbeaconfunds.com. The prospectus and summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating(TM) based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund's monthly performance (including the effects of sales charges, loads and redemption fees), placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The top 10% of funds in each category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. (Each share class is counted as a fraction of one fund within the scale and rated separately, which may cause slight variations in the distribution percentages.) The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted average of performance figures associated with its three-, five-, and ten-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund was rated against the following number of U.S. domiciled large-cap value funds over the following time periods: 1,127 funds over the last three years and 996 funds over the last five years. With respect to these large-cap value funds, American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund received an overall Morningstar Rating of four stars and four stars for the three- and five-year periods, respectively.

Distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC.

American Beacon is a registered service mark of American Beacon Advisors, Inc. American Beacon Funds and American Beacon Bridgeway Large Cap Value Fund are service marks of American Beacon Advisors, Inc.


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