Which of the following is most likely consistent with CFA Institute Standards of Professional Conduct?

Susan Foley, CFA, is Chief Investment Officer of Federated Investment Management Co. (FIMCO), a large investment management firm that includes a family of mutual funds as well as individually managed accounts. The individually managed accounts include individuals, personal trusts, and employee benefit plans. In the past few months, Foley has encountered a couple of problems.

The Tasty IPO

Most portfolio managers of FIMCO have not participated in the initial public offering (IPO) market in recent years. However, recent changes to the compensation calculation at FIMCO have tied manager bonuses to portfolio performance. The changes were outlined in a letter that was sent out to clients and prospects shortly before the new bonus structure took effect. Carl Lee, CFA, is one portfolio manager who believes that investing in IPOs may add to his client’s equity performance and, in turn, increase his bonus. While Lee’s individual clients have done quite well this year, his employee benefit plans have suffered as a result of limited exposure to the strongest performing sector of the market. Lee has placed an order for all employee benefit plans to receive an allocation of the Tasty Doughnut IPO. Tasty is an over-subscribed IPO that Lee knew would make money for his clients. When he placed the order, Lee’s assistant reminded him that one pension plan. Ultra Airlines, was explicitly prohibited from investing in IPOs in its investment policy statement, due to the under-funded status of the pension plan. Lee responded that the Tasty IPO would never actually be owned in Ultra’s account, because he would sell the IPO stock before the end of the day and realize a profit before the position ever hit the books.

Another manager, Franz Mason, CFA, who manages accounts for about 150 individuals, is also interested in the Tasty IPO. Mason visits Lee’s portfolio assistant and quizzes him about Lee’s participation in the Tasty deal. Mason is sure that Lee would not have bought into Tasty unless he had done his homework. Mason places an order for 10,000 shares of the IPO. Mason returns to his desk and begins to allocate the IPO shares among his clients. Mason divides his client base into two groups: clients who are income-oriented and clients who arc capital gains-oriented. Mason believes those clients that are income-oriented are fairly risk averse and could not replace lost capital if the Tasty Doughnut deal lost money. Mason believes the capital gains-oriented accounts arc better able to withstand the potential loss associated with the Tasty IPO. Accordingly, Mason allocates his 10,000 share order of the Tasty IPO strictly to his capital appreciation clients using a pro rata allocation based on the size of the assets under management in each account.

FIMCO Income Fund (FIF)

Over the past three years, the FIF, with $5 billion in assets, has been the company’s best performing mutual fund. Jane Ryan, CFA, managed the FIF for seven years, but resigned one year ago to start her own hedge fund. Under Ryan, the FIF invested in large cap stocks with reliable dividends. The fund’s prospectus specifies that FIF will invest only in stocks that have paid a dividend for at least two quarters, and have a market capitalization in excess of $2.5 billion. Foley appointed FIMCO’s next best manager (based on 5-year performance numbers) Steve Parsons, CFA, to replace Ryan. Parsons had been a very successful manager of the FIMCO Opportunity Fund, which specialized in small capitalization stocks. Six months after Parsons took over the helm at FIF. the portfolio had changed. The average market capitalization of FIF’s holdings was $12.8 billion, as opposed to $21 billion a year ago. Over the same period, the average dividend yield on the portfolio had fallen from 3.8% to 3.1%. The performance of the FIF lagged its peer group for the first time in three years. In response to the lagging performance, Parsons purchased five stocks six months ago. Parsons bought all five stocks, none of which paid a dividend at the time of purchase, in anticipation that each company was likely to initiate dividends in the near future. So far, four of the stocks have initiated dividend payments, and their performance has benefited as a result. The fifth stock did not initiate a dividend, and Parsons sold the position last week. Largely due to the addition of the five new stocks, the FIF’s performance has led its peer group over the past six months.

Before leaving FIMCO, Ryan had told Foley that above-average returns from both the management and client side could be gained from entering into the risk-arbitrage hedge fund market. Ryan had tried to convince FIMCO management to enter the risk-arbitrage market, but the firm determined that no one had the experience or research capability to run a risk-arbitrage operation. As a result, Ryan started the Plasma Fund LLC one month after leaving FIMCO. Foley remembers seeing Ryan at the annual FIMCO client dinner parly (before she left the firm) discussing the profits to be made from risk-arbitrage investing with several large FIF shareholders. Ryan mentioned that she would be opening the Plasma Fund to these FIMCO clients, several of whom made substantial investments in the first months of Plasma Fund’s life. After Ryan resigned and left her office, Foley performed an inventory of firm assets signed out to Ryan. One of the copies of the proprietary stock selection software packages, FIMCO-SelectStock, assigned to Ryan was missing along with several of the SelectStock operating manuals. When Foley contacts Ryan about the missing software and manuals, Ryan states that the reason she took the SelectStock software was that it was an out of date version that FIMCO’s information technology staff had urged all managers to discard.

Which of the following is most likely consistent with CFA Institute Standards of Professional Conduct?
A . Lee assumed that Ultra’s Tasty IPO position was acceptable as an intraday transaction.
B . Improved performance in Lee’s employee benefit plan accounts increases his bonus.
C . Mason relied on Lee’s investment decision as adequate rationale to buy into the Tasty IP

View Answer

Answer: B

Explanation:

Standard V1(A). There is no violation inherent in tying a manager’s compensation to the performance of his accounts. There is, of course, a risk is that managers will take inappropriate actions in an attempt to boost their performance, as Lee has in this case. But, there is no violation of Standard V1(A ) Conflicts of Interest – Disclosure of Conflicts. Whether Ultra owned a stock at the end of any particular day is not relevant so long as they did own the stock at some time. Thus Lee has violated Standard III (C) Duties to Clients – Suitability. Mason did not have a reasonable basis to buy into the IPO solely because Lee had placed an order. Thus Mason has violated standard V(A) Investment Analysis, Recommendations, and Action – Diligence and Reasonable Basis. (Study Session 1, LOS 2.a)