Vanguard Shuffles Management Of Two Tax-Exempt Bond Funds

Vanguard Group has reshuffled the management at the top of two tax-exempt bond funds, reassigning responsibilities over the limited-term tax-exempt fund and the insured long-term tax-exempt fund.

Pam Tynan will hand over the portfolio management of the $7 billion limited-term fund to Marlin Brown, while Reid Smith will cede the oversight of the $3.4 billion insured long-term fund to John Carbone. Both Tynan and Smith will continue to manage several other funds.

This will be the first national fund that Carbone will manage, after steering some of Vanguard's state funds for many years.

"John Carbone has been running a handful of single-state munis and he has a great deal of experience in muni investing," Morningstar Inc. analyst Karin Anderson said. "It's sort of the next logical step upward in going from single state to national."

Vanguard announced an earlier reshuffling in November, when tax-exempt portfolio manager Chris Ryon left the firm to focus on opportunities outside of the investment world. In his absence, Smith and Carbone took over the day-to-day operations of the funds that Ryon had managed.

"This is a normal rotation, we occasionally do this to give additional responsibilities to other experienced members to help them grow in their role," said Vanguard spokesperson Linda Wolohan.

Vanguard fixed-income group oversees nearly $416 billion in assets, including $78 billion in municipal bond funds and $184 billion in money market funds. The muni funds represent just over 5% of the total assets of the company and are rated an average of 4.1 stars out of 5, according to Morningstar.

Vanguard is known for very low expense ratios when compared to other muni bond fund families.

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