John Hancock Financial Services announced a broad-ranging subadvisory relationship with Grantham, Mayo Van Otterloo, under which John Hancock Funds will adopt eight GMO funds, retaining GMO as subadviser, according to an SEC filing today. Hancock is also establishing two new funds, the John Hancock U.S. Quality Equity Fund and the John Hancock Global Fund, for which GMO will be subadviser. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Adding the eight established GMO funds should prove a key step in Hancock's strategy to become "a top-tier player in the U.S. mutual fund marketplace," said John D. DesPrez III, John Hancock Financial Services president and CEO, in a press release.
Hancock's "strengths in serving financial advisers and individual investors complement our strengths in institutional asset management," Tony Ryan, a partner at GMO, who heads the firm's global client relations and sales, said in the press release. Tucker Hewes, a spokesman for GMO, said executives at the firm had no further comment.
