Winners Announced for 2020 U.S. Morningstar Awards for Investing Excellence

CHICAGO, June 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), a leading provider of independent investment research, today announced winners of its 2020 U.S. Morningstar Awards for Investing Excellence. The awards recognize portfolio managers, asset management firms, and up-and-coming managers, who demonstrate the industry's very best attributes, including investment skill and an alignment of interests with the strategies' investors.

Morningstar selects leaders in three categories: Outstanding Portfolio Manager, Exemplary Stewardship, and Rising Talent. The winners will be featured on CNBC's "Power Lunch" program today and throughout the week.

"Our 2020 winners stand out for their investing acumen and commitment to helping investors meet their goals," said Sarah Bush, Morningstar's director of manager research, North America. "The managers and firm selected share a focus on deep fundamental research and an 'investors first' ethos that has driven strong results."

The 2020 Morningstar Awards for Investing Excellence award winners in the United States are:

Outstanding Portfolio Manager: Jerome Clark, T. Rowe Price
Jerome Clark is a pioneer of target-date investing. He founded T. Rowe Price's target-date franchise in 2002 when there were only a handful of target-date series in the industry. The firm's target-date series, T. Rowe Price Target-Date Retirement Series, holds a Morningstar Analyst Rating™ of Silver on its funds' cheapest share classes.

"Jerome Clark helped build the firm's target-date franchise from its beginning in 2002 to today, overseeing its shift from a straightforward mix of U.S. stocks and bonds to a globally diversified portfolio," said Bush. "Clark and his team have generated strong returns for the series' many investors while taking a thoughtful and research-driven approach to asset allocation. Clark believes the biggest risk retirees face is a savings shortfall, and a high equity weighting helps combat that risk."

Clark will be stepping down as a portfolio manager on the target-date strategies at the start of 2021. His transition has been well-telegraphed, and part of his legacy is leaving the target-date series in strong hands. Clark's successor is Wyatt Lee, a 2020 nominee for the Morningstar Awards for Investing Excellence--Rising Talent.

Rising Talent: Mohit Mittal, Pimco
Mittal is a comanager on both Silver-rated Pimco Investment Grade Credit Bond and more recently, Pimco Total Return, whose shares receive Gold or Silver ratings. In addition to his portfolio management responsibilities, Mittal oversees the firm's U.S. investment-grade, high-yield, and emerging-markets corporate credit portfolio managers. This group runs more than $200 billion in dedicated credit accounts and also makes corporate trades on behalf of the firm's more broadly diversified portfolios.

"Mohit Mittal's impressive analytical, quantitative, and leadership skills have helped him ascend the ranks of Pimco's investment organization," said Bush. "He has had a tremendous impact on the team's ability to get down into the details of dedicated credit portfolios and to identify investment ideas that can be implemented in diversified strategies. That, combined with his management skills, have helped him to grow quickly at Pimco."

Exemplary Stewardship: T. Rowe Price
T. Rowe Price's strong and consistent investment culture has helped it flourish in a challenging environment for active managers.  The firm's success is rooted in its fundamental approach to active management and its ongoing efforts to maintain an environment where analysts and portfolio managers want to spend their entire careers.

"T. Rowe Price has consistently shown itself to be a careful steward of investors' capital," said Bush. "Investors benefit from managers' generally long tenures at the firm, well-planned manager transitions, the firm's ability to attract and retain talent, and a thoughtful approach to strategy launches and capacity management."

To read more about the winners, please visit Morningstar.com. Live updates from the award announcement will be available on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MorningstarInc or through the hashtag, #MstarAwards.

Morningstar has granted annual awards to accomplished portfolio managers since 1988. The Morningstar Awards for Investing Excellence winners are chosen based on research and in-depth qualitative evaluation by Morningstar's manager research group. The full methodology for the awards is available here. For more information about Morningstar Awards, visit https://go.morningstar.com/Morningstar-Awards.

About Morningstar, Inc.
Morningstar, Inc. is a leading provider of independent investment research in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. The Company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and institutional investors in the debt and private capital markets. Morningstar provides data and research insights on a wide range of investment offerings, including managed investment products, publicly listed companies, private capital markets, debt securities, and real-time global market data. Morningstar also offers investment management services through its investment advisory subsidiaries, with approximately $179 billion in assets under advisement and management as of March 31, 2020. The Company has operations in 27 countries. For more information, visit www.morningstar.com/company. Follow Morningstar on Twitter @MorningstarInc.

Morningstar's Manager Research Group consists of various wholly owned subsidiaries of Morningstar, Inc. including, but not limited to, Morningstar Research Services LLC. Analyst Ratings are subjective in nature and should not be used as the sole basis for investment decisions. Analyst Ratings are based on Morningstar's Manager Research Group's current expectations about future events and therefore involve unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause such expectations not to occur or to differ significantly from what was expected. Analyst Ratings are not guarantees nor should they be viewed as an assessment of a fund's, CIT's or separately managed account's underlying securities' creditworthiness. This press release is for informational purposes only; references to securities or a separately managed account investment strategy in this press release should not be considered an offer or solicitation to buy or sell the securities or to invest in accordance with that strategy.

©2020 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Media Contact: Sarah Wirth, +1 312 244-7358 or [email protected]

SOURCE Morningstar, Inc.

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