Evergreen Investments, the investment management unit of Wachovia Corp., introduced a small- to mid-cap growth fund for institutional clients Wednesday.
The Evergreen Small-Mid Cap Growth Fund is to be managed for long-term capital growth, the company said, by using a bottom-up, fundamental approach to stock selection. Donald Bisson, a director and a portfolio manager on the small-mid-cap growth team of Evergreen's fundamental equity group, is to manage the fund.
The small-mid-cap growth team intends to build a portfolio diversified across economic sectors and industry weightings. The fund is to use both qualitative and quantitative fundamental tools to seek companies that are felt to have growth potential and reasonable valuation. Initially it is to be available exclusively to institutional accounts with a minimum investment of $1 million. Evergreen has agreed to voluntarily waive advisory fees in the fund's first year in order to cap expenses at 0.92% of assets. The fund's benchmark is the Russell 2500 Growth Index.
Evergreen Institutional, a division of Evergreen Investments, had $144.3 billion of assets under management at June 30. Evergreen Investments managed $252 billion at Sept. 30.
