Method of administering an investment fund

• US 8,571,963 B2
• Filed: 05/14/2012
• Issued: 10/29/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Vanguard Group Incorporated
• Original Assignee: The Vanguard Group Incorporated
• Inventors: Ameriks, John, Buhl, John, Delk, Edward, Hyatt, Kathryn, Narayanan, Ranga, Travis, Shawn, Wallick, Daniel
• Primary Examiner(s): Dass, Harish T
• Application Number:
  US13/470,964
• Publication Number:
  US 20120226631A1
• Time in Patent Office: 533 Days
• Field of Search: 705 35- 37, 705/7.26
• US Class Current: 705/36.R
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/06 Asset management; Financial planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/10 Tax strategies
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

A method of administering an investment fund using a computer. The method includes the steps of creating shares for sale, providing a managed distribution schedule identifying a number of payments to be provided during each of consecutive periods, providing an investment strategy for investing in assets to provide funds sufficient to meet the managed distribution schedule, issuing a share to an investor in exchange for funds received from the investor, investing the received funds according to the investment strategy, calculating the value of each of the payments to be provided according to the managed distribution schedule in a period to the investor, and providing each of the payments to the investor during the period. Multiple embodiments relate to methods for calculation and sourcing of each payment.

Claims

1. A computer system for administering an investment fund,

the fund having a plurality of shares;

a managed distribution schedule comprising

a plurality of consecutive annual periods,

a number of payments to be provided during each of the consecutive annual periods, and

a formula for calculating a value for each of the payments; and

an investment strategy for investing in assets to provide funds sufficient to meet the managed distribution schedule;

the computer system comprising;

a computer; and

programmed instructions for performing method steps comprising;

calculating annually the value of each of the payments to be provided in a period according to the managed distribution schedule, the value comprising 1/n^th of a predetermined percentage of a designated value corresponding to one of the plurality of shares, wherein n equals a number of payments and the designated value for at least one of the consecutive annual periods comprises a trailing Net Asset Value (NAV);

modeling a plurality of asset allocation strategies;

plotting an efficient frontier of the modeled asset allocation strategies by probability of year-to-year decline and probability of maintaining real or nominal distributions;

receiving instructions selecting an asset allocation strategy from the efficient frontier as the investment strategy;

recording issuance of at least one share to an investor in exchange for funds received from the investor;

investing the received funds according to the investment strategy, thereby creating an investment portfolio; and

providing each of the payments to each investor during the period.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for calculating the trailing NAV by averaging NAV over a predetermined amount of time.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein each of the periods comprises a year and n=12.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein:

for a first year of the investment fund, the designated value comprises an initial per-share value, and

for a second year and subsequent years of the investment fund, the designated value comprises a trailing NAV calculated using an averaged daily per-share NAV over at least a portion of years of the investment fund prior to the second or subsequent years.

5. The computer system of claim 4, wherein for a third year of the investment fund, the designated value comprises an averaged daily per-share NAV over at least a portion of the first and second years of the investment fund.

6. The computer system of claim 4, wherein for a fourth year or subsequent years of the investment fund, the designated value comprises an averaged daily per-share NAV over at least a portion of three years of the investment fund previous to the fourth or subsequent years.

7. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the programmed instructions further comprise instructions for:

periodically modeling historical results of asset classes and investments represented in the investment portfolio and asset classes and investments not represented in the investment portfolio;

receiving instructions adjusting the asset allocation strategy of the investment portfolio to a revised group of asset classes and investments; and

reinvesting or rebalancing the investment portfolio according to the adjusted asset allocation strategy.

8. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for:

funding each of the payments in the selected annual period from one or more sources selected from the group consisting of;

net income of the assets of the investment portfolio, accumulated undistributed net profits resulting from a sale of any asset of the investment portfolio excluding long-term capital gains, and return of capital;

calculating an estimated contribution from each of the one or more sources to the payment for each of the payments in the selected annual period;

designating, after all the payments in the selected annual period have been provided, a first portion of the payments as sourced from the net income and accumulated undistributed net profits resulting from a sale of any asset of the investment portfolio excluding long-term capital gains and a second portion of the payments as sourced from the return of capital, the second portion corresponding to a percentage of the payments; and

providing an additional distribution corresponding to the selected annual period, to the extent the investment fund has realized net long-term capital gains for the selected annual period, the additional distribution funded in part from the net long-term capital gains and, in part, from return of capital, where the part sourced from return of capital corresponds to a percentage of the additional distribution, and the percentage of the additional distribution sourced from the return of capital is equal to the percentage of the payments in the annual period sourced from the return of capital, after taking all payments into account.

9. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for:

calculating, for each of the payments in the selected annual period, the estimated contribution from each of the one or more sources to accumulated aggregated payments for the selected annual period, and

reporting to the investor the estimated contribution from each of the one or more sources to the accumulated aggregated payments.

10. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for making the distribution, in part or in whole, as a capital gain dividend.

11. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for making the additional distribution include an amount equal to the absolute value of the sum of (1) all losses realized in a portion of the selected annual period, (2) any other amount that may be recharacterized as long-term capital gains realized by the fund in the selected annual period, and (3) an appropriate additional return of capital.

12. The computer system of claim 8, wherein each annual period of the payment schedule comprises twelve monthly payments, and the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for making the additional distribution in a twelfth month of a selected annual period in the managed distribution schedule or thereafter.

13. The computer system of claim 8, wherein the computer system further comprises programmed instructions for reinvesting the annual distribution back into the fund.

14. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the programmed instructions for modeling a plurality of asset allocation strategies further comprises programmed instructions for:

defining a capital markets model comprising;

a core module comprising a dynamic statistical model of global macroeconomic and financial risk factors, including global equity factors, global fixed income factors, and global economic factors, and adapted to generate a forecasts of such risk factors over a selected time horizon;

an attribution module configured to map returns of selected asset classes to contemporaneous changes in said risk factors based on observed historical relationships and estimated using regression techniques;

a simulation module configured to construct scenarios for said risk factors and said selected asset classes to create a distribution of future returns, volatilities and correlations;

performing a plurality of a regression-based Monte Carlo simulations to model distributions of returns and volatilities for a plurality of asset classes; and

combining the plurality of simulations for the plurality of asset classes to create a set of potential investment portfolios for plotting the efficient frontier.