NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MainStay Investments, a New York Life company, today announced the formation of a new subadvisory partnership with Marketfield Asset Management (“Marketfield”) and the proposed adoption of The Marketfield Fund (MFLDX) to the MainStay Family of Funds. The flexible allocation fund, with $2 billion in assets, will be reorganized into the MainStay Funds and become the “MainStay Marketfield Fund” pending shareholder approval. MainStay Investments will become the investment advisor to the new fund and Marketfield will be sub-advisor to the fund. Marketfield will continue to be responsible for the day to day portfolio management of the fund.
Founded in 2006 and led by President and Portfolio Manager Michael Aronstein and Michael Shaoul, the Chairman and CEO, New York-based Marketfield manages the Fund with a fundamental, macroeconomic investment process. The Marketfield Fund has ranked in the top quartile of Morningstar’s long-short category over the one year and three year periods ended May 31, 2012, and was rated 5-stars overall by Morningstar as of May 31, 2012.
“We are very pleased to welcome Marketfield to our team of diversified and independent investment managers,” said Stephen Fisher, president of the MainStay Funds. “The Marketfield investment team’s top-down macro-economic approach, expressed primarily through liquid publicly traded instruments, complements and enhances our existing fund family offerings. We believe that the MainStay Marketfield Fund will be a key driver for the continued growth of MainStay into the future.”
“Our team is very excited about the opportunities presented by this new partnership with MainStay Investments,” said Marketfield’s Michael Aronstein. “We believe the operational and distribution resources offered by MainStay will play a key role in our future growth while enabling our team to remain focused on the execution of our investment process. The Marketfield Fund remains committed to the core principles that have guided us over the last five years: a broad investment mandate driven by our own internal proprietary macroeconomic and fundamental research, transparency, and liquidity. It’s a model that has worked effectively for us and one that we know is resonating with our shareholders more than ever in this volatile economic climate.”
Aronstein and Shaoul bring over 50 years of combined investment experience to The Marketfield Fund, and are regular contributors to Bloomberg TV and other media outlets. Prior to joining Marketfield, Mr. Aronstein served in senior roles providing independent macroeconomic and strategic advice to professional investors as well as founding a discretionary commodity management firm. In addition to his role at Marketfield, Mr. Shaoul serves as chief executive officer of Oscar Gruss and Son Incorporated. Previously, Mr. Shaoul managed a Manhattan-based real estate investment and management company.
About MainStay Investments
With over $60 billion in mutual fund assets under management, as of March 31, 2012, MainStay Investments is the mutual fund distribution arm of New York Life. MainStay Investments provides financial advisors access to a powerful mix of autonomous, institutional investment managers, delivered by people who understand the needs of today’s financial advisor. MainStay Funds has been designated a top three fund family by Barron’s for the 10-year time period* for three consecutive years (as of 12/31/11, out of 45 mutual fund families). As an indirect subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company, a Fortune 100 company** founded in 1845, MainStay Investments is owned by the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States** and one of the largest life insurers in the world.
About Marketfield Asset Management
Marketfield Asset Management is a registered investment advisor with over $2 billion in assets under management as of May 31, 2012. The firm, through its funds, seeks capital appreciation by employing a flexible investment strategy based on the managers’ constant and thorough assessment of general macroeconomic and business conditions.
For more information about MainStay Funds, call 800-MAINSTAY (624-6782) for a prospectus or summary prospectus. Investors are asked to consider the investment objectives, risks, and charges and expenses of the investment carefully before investing. The prospectus or summary prospectus contains this and other information about the investment company. Please read the prospectus or summary prospectus carefully before investing.
MainStay Investments is a registered name under which New York Life Investment Management LLC does business. MainStay Investments, an indirect subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company, New York, NY 10010, provides investment advisory products and services. The MainStay Funds are managed by New York Life Investment Management LLC and distributed through NYLIFE Distributors LLC, 169 Lackawanna Avenue, Parsippany, NJ 07054, a wholly owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company. NYLIFE Distributors LLC is a Member of FINRA/SIPC.
*How Barron’s Ranks the Fund Families: To qualify for the Lipper/Barron’s Fund Survey, a fund family must have at least three funds in Lipper’s general U.S.-stock category, one in world equity (which combines global and international funds), one mixed-equity fund (which holds stocks and bonds), at least two taxable-bond funds, and one tax-exempt offering. Each fund’s returns are adjusted for 12b-1 fees. Fund loads, or sales charges, aren’t included in the calculation of returns, either. Each fund’s return is measured against those of all funds in its Lipper category, such as, say, small-cap value. That leads to a percentile ranking, with 100 the highest and 1 the lowest, which is then weighted by asset size, relative to the fund family’s other assets in its general classification, world equity, for instance. If a family’s biggest funds do well, that boosts its overall ranking. Poor performance in a big fund would have the opposite effect. Finally, the score is multiplied by the weighting of its general classification, as determined by the entire Lipper universe of funds. The category weightings for the one-year results: general equity, 38.04%; world equity, 12.77%; mixed equity, 17.36%; taxable bonds, 27.43%; and tax-exempt bonds, 4.40%. The category weightings for the five-year results: general equity, 40.12%; world equity, 12.32%; mixed equity, 17.30%; taxable bonds, 25.56%; and tax-exempt bonds, 4.70%. The category weightings for the 10-year results: general equity, 41.89%; world equity, 12.30%; mixed equity, 14.44%; taxable bonds, 25.99%; and tax-exempt bonds, 5.38%. The scoring: Say a company has a fund in the general U.S. equity category with $50 million in assets that accounts for half of the company’s assets in that category. Its ranking is the 75th percentile. The first calculation would be 75 x 0.50, which comes to 37.5. That score is then multiplied by 38.04%, general equity’s overall weighting in Lipper’s universe. So it would be 37.5 x 0.3804, which totals 14.265. Similar calculations are done for each fund in the study. Then, all the numbers are added up for a total score. The fund family with the highest score wins, both for every category and overall. The same process is repeated for the five- and 10-year rankings based on their weightings. Ranking data is from Lipper. Source: Barron’s, 2/6/12. Overall, MainStay Funds ranked seven for the one-year period, eight for the five-year period, and three for the 10-year period ended December 31, 2011, out of 58, 53, and 45 fund families, respectively.
**Based on revenue as reported by “Fortune 500 ranked within Industries, Insurance: Life, Health (Mutual),” Fortune magazine, May 21, 2012.
Morningstar Rating For each fund with at least a three-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating™ based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a fund’s monthly performance (including the effects of sales charges, loads, and redemption fees), placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The top 10% of funds in each category receive five stars, the next 22.5% receive four stars, the next 35% receive three stars, the next 22.5% receive two stars, and the next 10% receive one star. The Overall Morningstar Rating™ is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five-, and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating™ metrics. Funds with less than three years of performance history are not rated.
Morningstar Percent Rank in Category This is the fund’s total-return percentile rank for the specified time period relative to all funds that have the same Morningstar category. The highest (or most favorable) percentile rank is 1 and the lowest (or least favorable) percentile rank is 100. The top-performing fund in a category will always receive a rank of 1. Percentile ranks within categories are most useful in those categories that have a large number of funds.
Marketfield Fund rated five stars overall and five stars for the three-year period ending 5/31/12 from among 81 Long-Short Equity Funds. Morningstar percentile ranks for the one- and three-year periods are from among 179 and 79 Long-Short Equity funds, respectively.
Performance data quoted represents past performance. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Due to market volatility, current performance may be less or higher than the figures shown. Investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that upon redemption, shares may be worth more or less than their original cost. For performance information current to the most recent month-end, please visit our web site at mainstayinvestments.com.