American Century Investments Hires A Former BlackRock Portfolio Manager And An Exchange Traded Fund Specialist For ETF Initiative

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- American Century Investments today announced two new hires for its exchange traded funds (ETF) initiative. Rene Casis has been named portfolio manager and Sean Walker an ETF specialist for the $175 billion* global asset management firm. American Century is scheduled to launch two ETF funds in the first quarter.

Casis and Walker bring substantial ETF experience from BlackRock. Most recently, Casis was a partner at 55 Institutional, where he was a member of the firm's senior management team responsible for oversight of portfolio management and trading execution. Prior to that, he was a director for iShares at BlackRock, where he served as an investment strategist and senior portfolio manager. Casis worked at BlackRock for 19 years, including his tenure at Barclays Global Investors. Casis will be responsible for managing the index-based value equity ETF.

Walker worked at BlackRock as vice president and market leader, responsible for all active and passive product platforms for the West Coast of Florida. Prior to that, Walker managed Florida and southeast regional distribution for FlexShares ETF.  

"Rene and Sean will play a critical role as we establish American Century as an ETF destination, a company priority for 2018 and beyond," said Peruvemba Satish, American Century's senior vice president, portfolio manager and director of global analytics, which performs global macro and alpha research and partners with the firm's investment teams in the design of investment strategies and client solutions. "This is an exciting time as we continue to build our ETF business."

Casis graduated from the University of California with a bachelor's degree in economics. Walker graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor's degree in business administration and multi-national business operations and later received his master's degree from University of Miami School of Business.

American Century Investments is a leading global asset manager focused on delivering investment results and building long-term client relationships while supporting research that can improve human health and save lives.  Founded in 1958, American Century Investments' 1,300 employees serve investment professionals, institutions, corporations and individual investors from offices in New York; London; Hong Kong; Mountain View, Calif.; and Kansas City, Mo. Jonathan S. Thomas is president and chief executive officer, and Victor Zhang and David MacEwen serve as co-chief investment officers. Delivering investment results to clients enables American Century Investments to distribute over 40 percent of its dividends to the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, a 500-person, non-profit basic biomedical research organization. The Institute owns more than 40 percent of American Century Investments and has received dividend payments of $1.4 billion since 2000. For more information about American Century Investments, visit www.americancentury.com.  

This press release is for information purposes only and is not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as, an offer to sell securities. American Century may not sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective.

*$175 billion in assets under management as of January 3, 2018
©2018 American Century Proprietary Holdings, Inc.

SOURCE American Century Investments