Asset Mark Funds

I was looking for an alternative real estate fund for the Excelsior Real Estate Fund. I checked several real estate funds and found out that the Asset Mark Real Estate Securities Fund is an interesting fund. I have confidence in both managers of the fund. So I read further and realized that Asset Mark is an excellent company doing interesting things. It was recently acquired by Genworth Financial, an insurance company listed at NYSE.

Asset Mark Funds in a lot of ways are similar to the Vanguard non-index funds use multi-managers to manage the same funds. Its co-managers are carefully selected in my personal opinions. Each co-manager works independently to select their portfolio securities. Its offerings are very limited but cover almost all the traditional asset classes. There are only eight no-load mutual funds offered by Asset Mark.

1. Large Cap Growth Fund is co-managed by Atlanta Capital Management, Wellington Management Company, and TCW Investment Management.

2. Large Cap Value Fund is co-managed by Brandes Investment Partners, Davis Selected Advisors, and NFJ Investment Group.

3. Small/Mid Cap Growth Fund is co-managed by Copper Rock Capital Partners and Nicholas-Applegate Capital Management.

4. Small/Mid Cap Value Fund is co-managed by Advisory Research and First Quadrant.

5. International Equity Fund is co-managed by Clay Finlay and Oppenheimer Capital.

6. Real Estate Securities Fund is co-managed by Adelante Capital Management andAEW Capital Management.

7. Tax-Exempt Income Fund is co-managed by Delaware Investments and Nuveen Investments.

8. Core-plus Fixed Income Fund is co-managed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Western Asset Management.

The only disadvantage is that the management fees are relative high compared with the Vanguard index funds or the exchange-traded funds. The performance of the Asset Mark Real Estate Securities Fund is comparable with that of the Vanguard REIT index fund and the Fidelity Real Estate Fund.