Sterling Capital Fund wins 2012 Lipper Fund Award

RALEIGH, N.C., March 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Sterling Capital Funds is announcing that Sterling Capital Maryland Intermediate Tax-Free Fund's Class I shares won the 2012 Lipper Award as the Best Other States Intermediate Municipal Debt Fund among 39 funds during the five-year period ended Dec. 31, 2011. The Lipper Awards honor fund management firms and individual mutual funds that excel in delivering consistently strong risk-adjusted performance relative to their peers.

"Congratulations to Bob and his team," Jeffrey J. Schappe, CFA and chief investment officer of Sterling Capital Funds, said, "The Lipper Fund Awards are based on a rigorous methodology and the Maryland Intermediate Tax-Free Fund has provided superior and consistent results relative to its peers. We are pleased to recognize the fund's achievements."

Mark Montgomery, CFA and head of Sterling's Fixed Income Portfolio Management team, attributes the team's success in the intermediate municipal category to its focus on maintaining a consistent investment process.

"The tenets of the fund are high quality and disciplined investing with a total-return approach in mind, and an emphasis on superior returns during a longer time period," Montgomery said. "This award recognizes the strength of our investment team and process."

The fund ranked 66 out of 110 for the one-year period among the Lipper Intermediate Municipal Debt Funds based on total return. The fund ranked in the top quartile for the Lipper Intermediate Municipal Debt Funds for the three-year period (16 out of 107 funds) and ranked first in the category (1 out of 104 funds) for the five-year period ended Dec. 31, 2011.

The fund is managed by Bob Millikan, CFA, executive director with Sterling Capital Management. In addition to the management of this fund, Millikan and the team manages five additional state-specific tax-free funds for the firm.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Call 888-228-1872 or visit www.sterlingcapitalfunds.com for current month-end performance.

The funds are distributed by Sterling Capital Distributors LLC.

About Sterling Capital Management

Sterling Capital Management LLC is a registered investment adviser founded in 1970. An investment firm, Sterling is an independently operated subsidiary of BB&T Corporation (NYSE: BBT), one of the nation's largest financial services holding companies. Sterling is headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., with offices in Raleigh, N.C., Atlanta, Ga., Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, Calif. As of Dec. 31, 2011, Sterling has $34 billion in assets under management overseen by 83 investment and client-service professionals. Sterling provides worldwide investment management services to a diversified group of clients including corporate, public, healthcare, private clients, endowment/ foundation, insurance, sub-advisory and managed investment pools in 40 states and nine countries.

About the Lipper Fund Awards

The Lipper Fund Awards recognize funds that have excelled in delivering consistently strong risk-adjusted performance, relative to peers. In addition, the Lipper Fund Awards recognize fund families with high average scores for all mutual funds within a particular asset class or overall. The Lipper Fund Awards are formally announced each year at ceremonies that take place in 14 countries in Asia, Europe, MENA, and the Americas.

Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company, uses the Lipper Leader for Consistent Return methodology to designate award-winning funds in most individual classifications for the three-, five-, and ten-year periods and fund families with high average scores for the three-year time period. The top three-year classification winners and fund family winners receive trophies at the awards ceremonies. There are special situations where the one-year time period is recognized.

Lipper, a wholly owned subsidiary of Thomson Reuters, provides independent insight on global collective investments including mutual funds, retirement funds, hedge funds, fund fees and expenses to the asset management and media communities. Lipper ranks the performance of mutual funds within a classification of funds that have similar investment objectives. Rankings are historical with capital gains and dividends reinvested and do not include the effect of loads. Ranking is for the share class shown only; other classes may have different performance characteristics. When an expense waiver is in effect, it may have a material effect on the total return or yield, and therefore the ranking for the period.

Please consider charges, risks, expenses and investment objectives carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus containing this and other information, please call Sterling Capital Funds at 888-228-1872 or download it from www.sterlingcapitalfunds.com. Read it carefully before you invest.

Risk Considerations: The fund is subject to the same risks as the underlying bonds in the portfolios such as credit, prepayment and interest rate risk. As interest rates rise the value of bond prices will decline and an investor may lose money. The fund is non-diversified and may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a single issuer than funds that are more diversified. Furthermore, the fund invests primarily in state specific municipal obligations of issuers and therefore will be affected by economic, political or other events affecting municipal issuers.

SOURCE Sterling Capital Funds