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Strong performance and a conservative approach has enabled American Century Investments to outperform some of its competitors, despite market conditions that cost it 31.4% of its assets under management last year.
Enrique Chang, the Kansas City, Mo., mutual fund company's chief investment officer, said its international equity, bond and asset allocation funds were strong performers last year. American Century had $70.1 billion of assets under management as of Dec. 31. Chang said the company remains relatively successful, despite the outflows, because it has remained committed to fundamental analysis.
"We were having conversations in 2006 about leverage and risk being taken by firms that we invested in," he said. "So we began to get very conservative because of that."
That approach enabled American Century to deliver stronger performance than other fund companies. According to Morningstar, through the end of last year, 66% of American Century's funds were in the top half of their respective peer groups in terms of one-year performance, 77% were in the top half in three-year performance, and 69% were in the top half in five-year performance.
The company's best-performing areas last year were in the asset allocation/target date funds, fixed income and value, Morningstar said; growth funds, both international and domestic, struggled...