Oppenheimer's Fielding retires after 25 years at Rochester muni funds

By Susanna Moon

Chicago, April 16 - OppenheimerFunds, Inc. said that Ronald H. Fielding will retire next month after managing for more than 25 years the Oppenheimer Rochester municipal bond funds and their predecessors the Rochester Funds.

Daniel G. Loughran, senior vice president, senior portfolio manager and team leader of Rochester's investment team, will continue in his role and become the most senior investment manager at OppenheimerFunds' Rochester division, effective May 21.

Loughran, 45, and Fielding, 60, have worked together since 1994, when Loughran joined the Rochester Funds, according to a press release. The company then managed three funds with less than $4 billion in assets under management. It was acquired by OppenheimerFunds in 1996, and today the Rochester complex includes 18 municipal bond funds with combined assets of $21.6 billion as of April 15.

"Dan has demonstrated consistently strong leadership skills from the start of his career and his work on the Rochester team has delivered significant benefits to our long-term investors," Fielding said in the release. "I am certain that he will continue to bring the right combination of expertise, experience and professionalism to the tasks and challenges that lie ahead."

"I am far from alone in thinking that the current popularity of municipal bond funds among American investors can be traced, in part, to Ron's knowledge and enthusiasm," Loughran said. "His contrarian approach to municipal fund management has helped millions of long-term investors achieve their goals for high tax-free income over the years."

The Oppenheimer Rochester family of municipal bond funds currently includes Rochester Fund Municipals, a long-term municipal bond fund for New York investors; Oppenheimer Rochester National Municipals, a high-yield municipal bond fund for investors nationwide; Oppenheimer AMT-Free Municipals, a fund that will not increase an investor's exposure to the federal alternative minimum tax; three limited-term funds that invest predominantly in investment-grade municipal securities and maintain shorter average effective maturities than longer-term funds; and 12 other state-specific funds for investors in Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Loughran joined the Rochester Funds in October 1994. He earned a bachelor's degree in management science, with a concentration in finance, from the State University of New York at Genesee. He holds a Master's of Business Administration in finance from Pace University and earned a Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1996.

Fielding was the founder and president of Fielding Management Co., Inc. and co-founder of Rochester Capital Advisors, LP, the two investment advisers to the Rochester Funds, which were established in 1983.

Fielding has a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from St. John's College in Annapolis, Md., and a master's of economics and an M.B.A. in finance from the School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester. He earned a Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1981. Earlier in his career, he held positions at banks that are now part of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

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