Wall Street Journal Honors
Fiduciary, Artisan Funds
The Business Journal of
Jan. 13, 2009
Two Milwaukee-based mutual funds --
one each from Fiduciary Management and Artisan Funds -- made the list of six
funds in the Wall Street Journal’s “The Best Funds of 2008” rankings published
Tuesday.
Fiduciary Management’s FMI Common
Stock fund (NASDAQ: FMIMIX) was named the best small-company fund of 2008. The
fund had a 20.4 percent negative return in 2008, but outperformed its peers,
which averaged a 33.4 percent drop. The Journal called the category-topping
showing “a credit to longtime manager Ted Kellner and his team.”
“Kellner likes to find companies
with growing revenues and earnings, increasing profitability and attractive
returns on invested capital,” the Wall Street Journal said.
Artisan Funds’ International Value
fund (NASDAQ: ARTKX) was selected as The Wall Street Journal’s best
international fund. The Journal said fund managers David Samra and Daniel
O’Keefe “avoided the toxic financial stocks in 2008, the main reason they were
able to post a 30 percent loss when peers in the international multicap group
dropped an average of 43 percent.”
Morningstar Inc. last week named
Samra and O’Keefe its international managers of the year.