Bostson-based Putnam Investments is restructuring its equity investment unit, consolidating fund offerings and realigning manager incentives to reward top results, the global money management firm announced Monday.

As part of its restructuring, Putnam is merging half a dozen equity funds to remove product redundancies. In each case, the acquiring fund is the larger of the two funds, and shareholders in funds to be merged are generally expected to benefit from reduced expense ratios, it said.

With these changes, 12 portfolio managers will be leaving Putnam. In addition, 35 staff positions out of 2,500 have been eliminated across the firm, including reductions to quantitative research.

“We would make these changes whether markets were rising or falling,” said the firm’s new CEO Robert Reynolds. “They reflect a drive to simplify our offerings and foster leaner, more rapid decision-making to deliver better results. They enable us to manage our equity unit more efficiently and redirect resources to growth. And even as we make these adjustments, we are in the marketplace actively seeking to hire proven talent. There will be more to report on that front very soon.”

“We are reorganizing the way we manage money. We’re actively seeking proven talent in the marketplace, fostering individual managers’ authority, and rewarding top-quartile performers for delivering excellent, long-term results to shareholders,” Reynolds added.

“I have always believed that success in asset management depends on fundamental research, individual manager responsibility and accountability, retaining and attracting the best people, and rewarding those who deliver sustained, superior results,” Reynolds noted. “The changes we are making today reflect those beliefs. They lay the groundwork for us to move aggressively toward our highest priority of helping clients succeed by delivering sustained top-quartile investment performance.”

Putnam, wholly owned by Great-West Lifeco Inc., is part of the Power Financial Group of Companies.

IE