Management team structure and mutual fund performance

We investigate the relationship between performance and portfolio management team structure of open-end mutual funds during 1997-2004. We first analyze differences in performance and risk taking between single-manager and multiple-manager mutual funds and find that the latter underperform the single-manager funds in terms of risk-adjusted returns during the 2001-2004 bear market. This underperformance is more evident among growth-oriented funds. There are no differences observed in the 1997-2000 bull market. Not all multiple-manager funds, however, are managed by pure teams. When we compare the performance of single-manager and pure-team funds we do not find any differences in performance. The underperformance of multiple-manager funds documented in previous studies comes from multiple-manager funds that employ many investment advisors and, therefore, their exact management structure is unknown. We also document differences in management structure reporting between Morningstar and CRSP. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.