American Century hires Marge Karner to help manage three portfolios

By Toni Weeks

San Luis Obispo, Calif., July 29 – American Century Investments announced it has hired Marge Karner as a member of the firm’s Macro Strategy Team, which sets investment policy for its Fixed Income group.

The company also announced the launch of three new fixed-income portfolios, which Karner will help manage.

The new funds are the American Century Emerging Markets Debt, American Century Strategic Income and American Century Short Duration Strategic Income.

“We’re introducing these products in response to client demand,” co-chief investment officer David MacEwen said in a press release. “Our clients are looking for income as well as possible ways to help protect themselves from interest rate risk.”

“Additionally, we’re delighted to welcome Marge to the team. Her significant expertise in building out and managing emerging market debt products will be a positive addition to our seasoned fixed-income group.”

Karner joins American Century from International Finance Corp., where she served as principal investment officer. Previously she was a senior portfolio manager with HSBC Global Asset Management and, prior to that, held positions with International Financial and Barents Group of KPMG.

As previously reported, the Emerging Markets Debt fund is a total return fund whose investment strategy is to incorporate emerging markets debt with a global currency overlay. The fund seeks long-term total return by investing at least 80% of its net assets in fixed-income instruments of issuers tied economically to emerging markets. Its benchmark is the JPMorgan CEMBI Broad Diversified index.

The portfolio management team is comprised of Marge Karner, John Lovito, Brian Howell and Kevin Akioka.

Both the Strategic Income Fund and the Short Duration Strategic Income Fund will be managed by a portfolio management team that includes Akioka, Jeffrey Houston, Robert Gahagan, Howell and Karner. Both funds offer clients broad, multi-sector exposure within its securities, with a 50% maximum single-sector exposure. Duration will be within two years of the applicable benchmark, which is the Barclays U.S Government/Credit 1-3 Year index for the Short Duration fund and the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond index for the Strategic Income fund.

The investor class shares have a 0.74% management fee for either income fund and a 0.96% management fee for the emerging markets debt fund.

Kansas City, Mo.-based American Century Investment Management, Inc. will serve as the investment adviser to the funds.

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