what is a commingled fund 
a commingled fund is a fund that consists of a portfolio of assets from various accounts that are blended together commingled funds exist to reduce the costs of managing the constituent accounts separately commingled funds also referred to as institutional funds are a type of pooled fund that is not publicly listed or available to individual retail investors instead these are used by closed retirement plans pension funds insurance policies and other institutional accounts understanding a commingled fundcommingling involves the combining of assets of different investors into a single fund or investment vehicle commingling is a primary feature of most investment funds it may also be used to combine various types of contributions for various purposesin some ways commingled funds are similar to mutual funds both are professionally managed by one or more fund managers and can invest in basic financial instruments such as stocks bonds or a combination of both also like mutual funds commingled fund investments benefit from economies of scale which allow for lower trading costs per dollar of investment and diversification which lowers portfolio risk in other ways commingled funds are different from mutual funds there s no 12 b 1 marketing fee and often lower administration fees because they re not publicly marketed and the reporting requirements are different commingled funds are not regulated by the securities and exchange commission sec which means they are not required to submit a variety of lengthy disclosures mutual funds on the other hand must register with the sec and abide by the investment company act of 1940 commingled funds are not completely devoid of oversight though they are subject to review by the united states office of the comptroller of the currency as well as individual state regulators while mutual funds offer a prospectus commingled funds offer a summary plan description spd spds can offer more detail describing the fund s objectives investment strategy and background of its managers it also describes the rights and obligations of the plan participants and beneficiaries any participant in a plan offering a commingled fund should read the spd carefully to learn how a commingled fund performs on a day to day or quarterly basis you ll most likely have to contact your company retirement plan s information center for an update advantages and disadvantages of commingled fundsless regulation can result in fewer legal expenses and operating costs for a commingled fund the lower the costs the less drag on a fund s returns if a commingled fund and a comparable mutual fund post the exact same gross performance the commingled fund s net return would likely be better because its expenses were lower than the mutual fund s a disadvantage of commingled funds is that they do not have ticker symbols and are not publicly traded this lack of public information can make it difficult for outside investors to track the fund s capital gains dividends and interest income with publicly traded mutual funds this information is required to be transparent professionally manageddiversified portfoliolower fees and expenses than mutual fundseconomies of scaleilliquidless transparent harder to tracknot sec regulatedlimited availabilityexample of a commingled fundthe fidelity contrafund commingled pool is available to companies with qualified employee benefit plans 1like a mutual fund it has a portfolio manager and publicly discloses pertinent information via quarterly reports it focuses on large cap growth stocks with major weightings in information technology communication services consumer discretionary financial companies and health care unlike a mutual fund it isn t available to the public at large 1the contrafund commingled pool has a 0 43 expense ratio since its inception in 2014 the fund has delivered an annualized return of 14 69 versus the 12 96 produced by the s p 500 index 1special considerationsin some cases the commingling of funds may be illegal this usually occurs when an investment manager combines client money with their own or their firm s in violation of a contract details of an asset management agreement are typically outlined in an investment management contract an investment manager has a fiduciary responsibility to manage assets according to certain specifications and standards assets agreed to be managed as separate cannot be commingled by the investment advisor other legal situations may also arise where contributions provided by a client must be managed with special care this can occur in legal cases corporate client accounts and real estate transactions 