The longtime PM of the T. Rowe Price [profile] Small-Cap Value strategy plans to step down in 2014. Morningstar reports that the Baltimore-based money-management firm has filed a notice with the SEC stating that J. David Wagner will replace Preston Athey as the strategy's portfolio manager on July 30, 2014.

The Small-Cap Value fund currently holds $7.2 billion and was awarded four stars by Morningstar.

A T. Rowe Price spokesman told MFWire that Athey is not planning to retire from the firm, but will transition to a mentoring role. T. Rowe's funds are all run by single PMs who are advised by investment advisory committees, and the spokesman said that Wagner, Athey's eventual replacement, is already a member of the Small-Cap Fund's investment-advisory committee.

The Morningstar story provides more details on Athey's twenty-year run at the helm of the small-cap strategy. The fund gained 12 percent a year under Athey, outdoing the Russell 2000 Index, and also lost less in down markets and was less volatile. 

Edited by: Chris Cumming


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