Late last week, the Tamarack Money Market funds were renamed the RBC Money Market funds, and the fund family's Prime and U.S. Government Money Market Funds just received 'AAAm' ratings from Standard & Poor's. The newly-branded RBC funds continue to be advised by Minneapolis-based Voyageur Asset Management, a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada. The fund group has also recently begun a push into the institutional money fund space with the launch of a number of new share classes. RBC will be profiled in the upcoming February issue of our Money Fund Intelligence.
S&P's release says, "[I]t assigned its 'AAAm' principal stability fund rating to the Prime Money Market Fund and U.S. Government Money Market Fund of the Tamarack Funds Trust. Each of the funds has five share classes, which are: RBC Institutional Class 1, RBC Institutional Class 2, RBC Select Class 3, RBC Reserve Class 4, and RBC Investor Class 5. The funds commenced operations in 1991 and their investment objective is to achieve as high a level of current income obtainable from investments in short-term securities as is consistent with prudent investment management, the preservation of capital, and the maintenance of liquidity."
The ratings agency continues, "The funds' investment advisor is Voyager Asset Management Inc. (VAM), which was founded in 1983 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of RBC Capital Markets Holdings (USA) Inc. RBC Capital Markets Holdings (USA) Inc. is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada.... The transfer agent for the funds is Boston Financial Data Services, the Administrator is VAM, the distributor is Tamarack Distributors Inc., and the custodian is Wells Fargo Institutional Trust Services.
Finally, S&P says, "Before Jan. 28, 2009, these two funds were called the Tamarack Prime Money Market Fund and the Tamarack U.S. Government Money Market Fund. VAM is also the investment manager on these eight 'AAAm' rated local government investment pools: Illinois School District Liquid Asset Fund Plus - Liquid Class; Illinois School District Liquid Asset Fund Plus - Max Class; New York Liquid Asset Fund - Liquid Class; New York Liquid Asset Fund - Max Class; Pennsylvania School District Liquid Asset Fund - Liquid Series; Pennsylvania School District Liquid Asset Fund - Max Series; Wisconsin Investment Cooperative - Investment Series; and Wisconsin Investment Cooperative - Cash Management Series."
