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.