Dreyfus Taps Standish Mellon Skippers to Run High-Yield Fund

The board of directors for the $490 million Dreyfus High Yield Strategies Fund approved the appointment of Jon Uhrig and John McNichols as the new portfolio managers, effective Jan. 31.

Both Uhrig and McNichols come from Dreyfus' affiliate Standish Mellon Asset Management, a leading fixed-income manager, which has more than $200 billion in dedicated fixed-income assets.

Uhrig is a portfolio manager for high-yield strategies, as well as the head of high yield trading with Standish Mellon. Before joining the company in 1997, he was an analyst and portfolio manager for Longfellow Investment Management, and a high-grade corporate bond strategist at Goldman Sachs.

McNichols, a secondary portfolio manager for the fund, is Standish Mellon's director of credit research and investment. Prior to joining Standish Mellon in 1993, he was an analyst with Jefferson-Pilot Corporation and a commercial banker with First Union Corporation.

The arrival of Uhrig and McNichols should be a good sign for Dreyfus, which, according to Morningstar fund analyst Dieter Bardy, has performed inconsistently. Bardy is optimistic that Standish Mellon's "robust, institutional-quality investment process" will help Dreyfus right the ship.