Horses for courses: Fund managers and organizational structures

This paper considers the team management of mutual funds, fund manager ability, performance, and holdings. We find evidence suggesting there is a positive relation between performance and team management concurrent with a negative relation between managerial ability and the use of team management. Consistent with the notion that the team management suppresses portfolio eccentricity and leads to more generic trading strategies, thereby both increasing returns and making returns less informative of fund manager ability, we also find that team management is associated with less idiosyncratic portfolio holdings and a greater loading on large capitalization, low book-to-market, and momentum stocks.