LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The TCW Group, Inc., a global asset management firm, today announced that it has been appointed by Columbia Management to sub-advise on a fund within the Columbia Funds Variable Series Trust II. In that role, TCW will manage the TCW Core Plus Bond Fund, a fixed income fund with approximately $1.3 billion in assets as of December 31, 2013.
The TCW Core Plus Bond Fund was previously known as the PIMCO Mortgage-Backed Securities Fund. Initially launched in 2010, the fund had invested significantly in highly-rated mortgage instruments and seeks to provide shareholders with total return through both income and capital appreciation.
Within its mutual fund families, TCW manages several Morningstar five star-rated bond funds, including the MetWest Total Return Bond Fund and the TCW Total Return Bond Fund. Over the past three years, the MetWest Total Return Bond Fund outperformed 95% of its peers, and the TCW Total Return Bond Fund outperformed 98% of its peers.
David Lippman, Chief Executive Officer of TCW, said, “We are pleased to continue to expand our partnership with Columbia Management and look forward to putting our industry-recognized expertise in fixed income to work for the benefit of investors in the TCW Core Plus Bond Fund.”
About the TCW Group
Founded in 1971, The TCW Group, Inc. develops and manages a broad range of innovative, value-added investment products that strive to enhance and protect clients’ wealth, with over $130 billion in assets under management. TCW clients include many of the largest corporate and public pension plans, financial institutions, endowments and foundations in the U.S., as well as a substantial number of foreign investors and high net worth individuals. For more information, please visit www.tcw.com.
About Columbia Management
Columbia Management is a leading investment manager with $356 billion under management as of December, and the eighth largest manager of long-term mutual fund assets in the U.S. The firm serves a wide range of individual, institutional and high-net-worth clients, and seeks to generate consistent, competitive investment returns through a rigorous, research-driven investment process and disciplined risk management. Columbia Management is a subsidiary of Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP). For more information, please visit columbiamanagement.com.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Obtain a Prospectus
You should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of a mutual fund carefully before investing. The TCW Total Return Bond and MetWest Total Return Bond Funds’ Prospectus and Summary Prospectus contain this and other information about the Funds. To receive a Prospectus, please call 800-386-3829 for TCW Funds or 800-241-4671 for MetWest Funds or you may download the Prospectus from the Funds’ website at TCW.com. Please read it carefully.
Additional information about the Columbia Fund’s Variable Series Trust II investments is available in the Fund’s annual and semiannual reports to shareholders. In the annual report, you will find a discussion of the market conditions and investment strategies that significantly affected the Fund’s performance during its last fiscal year. The SAI also provides additional information about the Fund and its policies. The SAI, which has been filed with the SEC, is legally part of this prospectus (incorporated by reference). To obtain these documents free of charge, to request other information about the Fund and to make shareholder inquiries, please contact the Fund as follows:
By Mail: Columbia Funds
c/o Columbia Management
Investment
Services Corp.
P.O. Box 8081
Boston, MA 02266-8081
By Telephone: 800.345.6611
The Fund’s offering documents and shareholder reports are not available on the Columbia Funds’ website because they are generally available only through insurance companies or retirement plans.
A Word About Risk
Funds investing in U.S. government-guaranteed securities, including the TCW Total Return Bond Fund and the MetWest Total Return Bond Fund, are neither insured nor guaranteed by the U.S. Government and neither the Fund nor its yield is guaranteed by the U.S. Government.
Fixed income investments entail interest rate risk, the risk of issuer default, issuer credit risk, and price volatility risk. Funds investing in bonds can lose their value as interest rates rise and an investor can lose principal.
Mortgage-backed and other asset-backed securities often involve risks that are different from or more acute than risks associated with other types of debt instruments. MBS related to floating rate loans may exhibit greater price volatility than a fixed rate obligation of similar credit quality. With respect to non-agency MBS, there are no direct or indirect government or agency guarantees of payments in pools created by non-governmental issuers. Non-agency MBS are also not subject to the same underwriting requirements for the underlying mortgages that are applicable to those mortgage-related securities that have a government or government-sponsored entity guarantee.
Morningstar proprietary ratings reflect historical risk-adjusted performance as of February 28, 2014. For each fund with at least a 3-year history, Morningstar calculates a Morningstar Rating™ based on a Morningstar risk-adjusted return measure that accounts for a 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 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. (Each share class is counted as a fraction of one fund within this scale and rated separately, which may cause slight variations in the distribution percentages.) The Overall Morningstar Rating for a fund is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its 3-, 5- and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics. The total number of Intermediate-Term Bond funds that the TCW Total Return Bond and MetWest Total Return Bond Funds were rated against for the 3-, 5-, and 10-year time periods were 941, 809 and 578 respectively. The TCW Total Return Bond I and N Share Funds, and MetWest Total Return Bond I and M Share Funds received a rating of 5 stars for the 3-, 5-, and 10-year periods. © 2014 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The information contained herein: (1) is proprietary to Morningstar and/or its content providers; (2) may not be copied or distributed; and (3) is not warranted to be accurate, complete or timely. Neither Morningstar nor its content providers are responsible for any damages or losses arising from any use of this information. Past Performance is no guarantee of future results.
The TCW Funds are distributed by TCW Funds Distributors.
The MetWest Funds are distributed by Foreside Fund Distributors, LLC. which is not affiliated with TCW. The MetWest Funds are advised by Metropolitan West Asset Management, LLC, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The TCW Group, Inc.