Vanguard's longtime fixed-income boss announces retirement

Robert Auwaerter, a 32-year veteran of The Vanguard Group Inc., on Monday announced plans to retire next March as head of the fixed-income group. Mr. Auwaerter, 58, is responsible for the portfolio management, strategy, credit research, trading and planning functions for the fixed-income group, which includes 120 investment professionals and support staff members. He will be replaced by Gregory Davis, 43, who currently serves as chief investment officer of the Asia Pacific region and is a director of Vanguard Investments Australia. Mr. Davis has worked for Vanguard since 1999. In 1981, when Mr. Auwaerter joined Vanguard, the company had just brought in-house the investment management of its money market and municipal bond funds, which at that time had assets of approximately $1.3 billion. Today, the Vanguard Fixed Income Group is one of the largest fixed-income managers in the world, managing nearly $750 billion invested in 70 taxable and tax-exempt bond, taxable and tax-exempt money market, and stable-value funds. In a statement, Vanguard chief executive Bill McNabb described Mr. Auwaerter as “the backbone of our fixed-income group for more than three decades.”