Williams Capital Government Money Market Fund, managed by Williams Capital Management, has become the second fund family monitored by Crane Data to commit to regular daily publication of the new WAL, or weighted average life metric, alongside the commonplace WAM, or weighted average matutity. The minority-owned firm also recently announced that its flagship money fund broke the $1 billion barrier and that the company received a large investment mandate (see Williams Capital to Manage $1 Billion for Goldman Sachs).
President Dail St. Claire wrote to shareholders recently, "July 30, 2009 was a significant day in the growth of our firm. The Williams Capital Government Money Market Fund total assets grew past $1 billion for the first time. Total firm assets, including our cash management and short-term fixed income accounts, total over $2 billion. We are fortunate to work with you and greatly appreciate the opportunity to manage your assets."
The letter continues, "Williams Capital Management continues to manage your assets in a manner consistent with the maintenance of liquidity and capital preservation. We are also committed to providing the highest degree of transparency in the Williams Capital Government Money Market Fund. In recognition of this objective, we are providing the portfolio holdings on a daily basis. We are now pleased to announce that next week the Williams Capital Government Money Market Fund will begin reporting the Fund's Weighted Average Life (WAL) daily. The WAL will be included in the Fund's Daily Rate Sheet along side the traditional Weighted Average Maturity."
It explains, "WAL is a metric that adjusts the Fund's WAM to reflect all securities' stated (or legal) final maturity or the date on which the Fund may demand payment of principal and interest. WAM allows money market funds to use the interest rate reset dates of variable- and floating-rate securities under certain circumstances as a measure of their maturity. Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission proposed new regulations designed to make money market fund more resilient to certain short-term market risks."
"Under the proposed regulations, Rule 2a-7 money market mutual fund portfolios will be required to have a maximum WAL of 120 days. Williams Capital Management believes that WAL is a critical risk metric and a better gauge of a money market fund's liquidity than a fund's WAM which can take advantage of maturity shortening features for variable and floating rate securities. We also believe it will become a standard reporting metric," the company says. (See also our previous article on WAL, "Morgan Stanley Adds Weighted Average Life Metric to Daily Yields".)
