Ivy Borrows Another Page from its Sister's Playbook
Reported by Armie Margaret Lee
Ivy Funds has filed papers with SEC to launch a pair of funds, both of which employ strategies imported from Ivy's sister fund family, Waddell & Reed Advisors Funds.
Thomas Butch
Ivy Funds Distributor
The last time Ivy imported a strategy from the W&R lineup was in the spring of last year, when it launched the Global Bond Fund.
Ivy filed with the SEC last Friday to roll out the Ivy Municipal High Income Fund and Tax-Managed Equity Fund.
Those strategies are attractive to the market, noted Tom Butch, president and CEO of Ivy Funds Distributor.
The move would expose those strategies to a broader audience. The Waddell & Reed funds are sold by Waddell and Legend advisors, while the Ivy Funds are sold both in the advisor channel and the wholesale channel.
Ivy Funds Distributors has 42 wholesalers, 22 of whom focus on wirehouses. It has 10 focusing on the independent channel, six of whom are splitting their time between the field and the internal sales desk. The sales team also includes four wholesalers dedicated to RIAs, three to the retirement market and two to the institutional space.
Meanwhile, Butch is seeing one bright spot in the market turmoil.
"It gives us an opportunity to make advisors and clients aware of some of our products that they might have not been familiar with previously," he said, pointing to Ivy's fixed income products. "It enables us to show the breadth of our wares."
Most of Ivy's sales have been concentrated in a few products, including Asset Strategy Fund and Global Natural Resources Fund.