It’s official: Radlo joins CI

The rumours have been circulating since October, but the official word came down Monday: Alan Radlo is joining CI Investments.

“CI’s strategy is to offer the widest choice of top-ranked portfolio management teams, and we are pleased to retain a manager with the stature and expertise of Alan Radlo,” said Peter W. Anderson, chief executive officer of CI.

Radlo has been named senior vice-president, portfolio management, as well as chief investment officer of CI’s new Cambridge Funds team and will serve as lead portfolio manager of Cambridge Canadian Equity Corporate Class, Cambridge Canadian Asset Allocation Corporate Class and Cambridge Global Equity Corporate Class.

“I have admired CI for some time and have held CI Financial Income Fund as a core investment in my former portfolios,” Radlo said. “At CI, I am building a team to manage the Cambridge Funds using the principles and the approach that I have developed and refined over the last 25 years.”

The announcement also ends the mystery about the names of the funds. In December, CI filed preliminary prospectuses for funds bearing less-than-exciting names including CI New Canadian Equity Corporate Class, CI New Global Equity Corporate Class and CI New Canadian Asset Allocation.

Anderson went on to praise Radlo’s “exceptional track record,” referring to his tenure at Fidelity Investments. “He has quite rightly earned a loyal following among Canadian advisors and investors.”

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Radlo left Fidelity in December 2006, after a 21-year career with the firm. By the time he left the Boston-based company, he was managing over $10 billion in assets.

“It was interesting reading,” Radlo says of the rumours that surrounded him for the past year. “I was ending up everywhere.

“To be brutally frank, in joining CI, I asked Mr. Holland, ‘where do I fit in here? It doesn’t make sense for me to come in here and cannibalize,'” he says. “The management of CI has identified the way I do things as different enough and attractive enough to a particular segment of the marketplace on the advisor side that they feel comfortable.”

Radlo plans to hire three senior analysts, which he says are “close to signing on the dotted line” at the moment. While Cambridge and Radlo himself will be based in Boston, he says there is a chance that at least one of his associates will work out of the Toronto office.

“I have not had any problems in the past 14 years managing money out of Boston for Canadian mutual funds, and if anything, it has gotten easier, not harder,” he says.

While Radlo is best known for his management of Canadian mandates, he points out that his first job at Fidelity — back in 1985 — was with an international fund.

“I was immersed in international investing probably before most people in Canada,” he says. Given the global nature of so many industries, he says even a strictly Canadian equity fund manager must understand the foreign competitors to a domestic company before investing.

The Cambridge Funds are available immediately and form part of the tax-efficient CI Corporate Class. They are available in class A, F, I and W shares, and T-Class, CI’s tax-efficient cash flow service.

Filed by Steven Lamb, Advisor.ca, steven.lamb@advisor.rogers.com

(01/07/08)

Steven Lamb