Evergreen Investments will recommend to the Evergreen Funds’ board of trustees that day-to-day portfolio management of four underperforming Evergreen fixed-income funds be given to Wells Capital Management, according to a statement by Evergreen.
The funds were part of the $72.6 billion in domestic fixed-income strategies managed by Tattersall Advisory Group, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Evergreen in 1999. Laura Fay, a spokeswoman for Wells Fargo Funds Management Group/Evergreen Investments, declined to say whether any other portion of Tattersall’s assets would be taken over by Wells Fargo managers.
Wells Capital is the money management arm of Wells Fargo, which acquired Evergreen parent Wachovia late last year.
If approved by both the funds’ trustees and shareholders, the changes would take place later this year, the statement said.
The funds affected are the $739 million Evergreen Core Bond fund and its variable annuity clone, the $182 million Evergreen Short Intermediate Bond fund and the $161 million Evergreen Core Plus fund, all of which suffered declines of 20% or more in 2008 — dramatically underperforming their benchmarks.
According to the statement, the change in portfolio management teams will be accomplished either by executing a new subadvisory agreement or by reorganizing each Evergreen fund into a similarly managed Wells Fargo Advantage Fund.
Ms. Fay declined to say whether any consideration had been given to launching a wider search for a new subadviser for those funds.
