Minneapolis-based Leuthold Weeden Capital Management’s Board of Directors of the Leuthold Hedged Equity Fund has decided to liquidate the underperforming fund.
The firm started liquidating the fund on May 16 and will distribute holdings of remaining shareholders on June 25, according to a
The fund began trading in July 20009 and was managed by portfolio managers Matt Paschke, Greg Swenson and Eric Weigel. Its mandate was to bet on companies “of all sizes and industries, as well as in stocks classified as ‘growth’ or ‘value’”.
However, the fund returned a “disappointing” -2.68% compared to the S&P 500 total return gain of 12.59%, and the 0.01% total return gain of the Citigroup 90-day Treasury Bill, according to a shareholder letter.
“The fund failed to provide positive net results during this market strength as both strategies employed underperformed their benchmarks by 1% and nearly 3%, for the long-stocks and short-stocks, respectively,” wrote the PMs.
The fund managed $4.9 million as of the end of March.
The firm is currently going through some tough times on the product and personnel fronts. Former portfolio manager Andrew J. Engel, a co-PM of the Leuthold Core Investment Fund and the Leuthold Asset Allocation Fund,
