Scott Amero, co-head of fixed income at BlackRock Financial Management, has increased his involvement on the high-yield team at the New York firm. Amero has become a co-manager of the BlackRock High-Yield Bond Portfolio, a $619 million fund, along with Dennis Schaney. Amero takes over for Michael Buchanan, who left recently to join Janus Funds where he replaced Sandy Rufenacht who resigned to start his own firm.
Raymond Ahn, a BlackRock spokesman, says the firm is still determining whether to make any additional hires to compensate for the loss of Buchanan. The institutional shares of the BlackRock's High-Yield Bond Portfolio have outperformed the Lipper High Current Yield Bond Index over the last one- and three-year periods. The Lipper index tracks the performance of the largest 30 high-yield funds. BlackRock has over $8 billion in high-yield assets.