The ROCMuni Short Term Municipal Bond Fund Receives 5-Star Overall Morningstar Rating™; Three-Year Performance Ranks in the Top 1%
BEVERLY, Mass., May 07, 2025–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Easterly Asset Management (“Easterly”), home to investment teams providing investors with a portfolio of solutions across alternatives, active equity, and active fixed income, today recognized the third anniversary of the Easterly ROCMuni Short Term Municipal Bond Fund (I Shares: RMSIX; Investor Class Shares: RMSVX) (the “Fund”), marking an important milestone in its performance history and growth trajectory.
As of April 30, 2025, the Easterly ROC Muni Short Term Municipal Bond Fund has been recognized with an initial 5-Star Overall Morningstar Rating™1 and its three-year performance ranks in the top 1%,2 measured against 211 funds in Morningstar’s Muni National Short category. Additionally, the fund has a current Distribution Yield of 4.04% and a 6.82% Taxable Equivalent Yield for the same period.
“The ROCMuni Short Term Municipal Bond Fund three-year track record is reflective of the investment team’s deep expertise, disciplined approach, and unwavering commitment to investors,” said Darrell Crate, Founder and Managing Principal of Easterly Asset Management. “As we navigate shifting and unpredictable market cycles, the Easterly ROC Municipals team furthers our mission of making portfolios better by delivering tax-efficient, yield-driven total returns, helping investors to realize consistent, federally tax-exempt income.”
The fund’s three-year track record highlights the strength and depth of the Easterly ROC Municipals team, led by experienced municipal bond experts Troy Willis, JD, CFA, and Charlie Pulire, CFA. Their disciplined, credit-driven investment approach, honed over nearly two decades of working together, including their tenure at the OppenheimerFunds Rochester Municipal Bond team, has been instrumental in driving the fund’s success.
Easterly ROCMuni Short Term Municipal Bond Fund (Class I and Investor)
Morningstar Category: Muni National Short
Rating Information:
Based on risk-adjusted returns
Overall
3-Year
5-Year
Morningstar Star Rating
5
5
N/A
# Funds in Category
211
211
197
Inception date: 04/27/2022
“We’re thrilled to reach this important milestone for the fund and at the same time receive the 5-star Morningstar rating,” said Troy Willis, JD, CFA, Co-Head Municipals and Senior Portfolio Manager at Easterly ROC Municipals. “It’s evidence of both the success of our partnership with Easterly and our team’s unique ability to apply rigorous, bottom-up credit analysis to identify undervalued and overlooked sectors that help to deliver higher yields and value for investors.”
The Easterly ROCMuni Short Term Municipal Bond Fund is designed to provide current income exempt from regular federal income tax through a diversified, short-duration, high-grade municipal bond portfolio. Unlike traditional short-term investment strategies, the fund takes advantage of market inefficiencies by investing in overlooked premium coupon callable bonds, helping to diversify reinvestment risk and offer potentially higher levels of federally tax-exempt income. The Easterly ROC Municipals short duration investment strategy was specifically developed to address two persistent inefficiencies in the municipal bond market: the mispricing of credit risk and the market’s tendency to overpay for certainty.
Easterly ROC Municipals also manages the Easterly ROCMuni High Income Municipal Bond Fund (Tickers: RMHIX, RMJAX, RMHVX), which seeks to provide current income exempt from regular federal income tax and to seek total return. The two investment strategies work to diversify a fixed-income portfolio across credits, geographies, and overlooked and undervalued sectors of the municipal bond market.
ABOUT EASTERLY
Easterly Asset Management and its Strategic Partners provide private wealth and institutional investors with a portfolio of solutions across alternatives, active equity and active fixed income. Founded in 2019, Easterly’s goal is to bring curated solutions to clients that make their portfolios better by partnering with trusted investment teams who have an established track record of delivering value to investors. Easterly enables high-performing managers to operate at scale by delivering best-in-class resources, risk management, operational support, infrastructure, and an institutional and wealth distribution team. As of December 31, 2024, Easterly and its Strategic Partners manage $60B of client assets. For more information, visit easterlyam.com.
Investors should carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Fund. This and other important information about the Fund is contained in the prospectus which should be read carefully before investing and can be obtained by visiting funds.easterlyam.com or by calling 888-814-8180.
The Easterly funds are distributed by Easterly Securities LLC, member FINRA/SIPC. Easterly Investment Partners LLC is an affiliate of Easterly Securities LLC. Orange Investment Advisers, LLC and EAB Investment Group, LLC are not affiliated with Easterly Securities LLC.
Easterly Investment Partners LLC is the investment adviser to the Easterly mutual funds. Easterly Investment Partners LLC is an SEC registered investment adviser; see Form ADV at www.sec.gov. Registration does not imply and should not be interpreted to imply any particular level of skill or expertise.
Not FDIC Insured–No Bank Guarantee–May Lose Value.
1The Morningstar Rating™ for funds or “star rating”, is calculated for managed products (including mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life subaccounts, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds, and separate accounts) with at least a three-year history. Exchange-traded funds and open-ended mutual funds are considered a single population for comparative purposes. It is calculated based on a Morningstar Risk-Adjusted Return measure that accounts for variation in a managed product’s monthly excess performance, placing more emphasis on downward variations and rewarding consistent performance. The Morningstar Rating does not include any adjustment for sales loads. The top 10% of products in each product category receive 5 stars, the next 22.5% receive 4 stars, the next 35% receive 3 stars, the next 22.5% receive 2 stars and the bottom 10% receive 1 star. The Overall Morningstar Rating for a managed product is derived from a weighted average of the performance figures associated with its three-, five- and 10-year (if applicable) Morningstar Rating metrics.
Morningstar Rating is for the I share class only; other classes may have different performance characteristics.
2 Morningstar Category % Rank is a fund’s total-return percentile rank relative to all funds in the same category. The highest (or most favorable) percentile rank is one and the lowest (or least favorable) percentile rank is 100. As of 4/30/2025, RMSIX ranked in the top 1% among 211 constituents in the category for the 3-year period based on total returns. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Easterly has paid a standard fee to Morningstar for access to the rankings data.
IMPORTANT FUND RISK
Municipal Securities Risk. The municipal market is volatile and can be significantly affected by adverse tax, legislative or political changes and the financial condition of the issuers of municipal securities. Changes in a municipality’s financial health may make it difficult for the municipality to make interest and principal payments when due. Failure of a municipal security issuer to comply with applicable tax requirements may make income paid thereon taxable, resulting in a decline in the security’s value. In addition, there could be changes in applicable tax laws or tax treatments that reduce or eliminate the current federal income tax exemption on municipal securities or otherwise adversely affect the current federal or state tax status of municipal securities. A number of municipalities have had significant financial problems recently, and these and other municipalities could, potentially, continue to experience significant financial problems resulting from lower tax revenues and/or decreased aid from state and local governments in the event of an economic downturn. This could decrease the Fund’s income or hurt the ability to preserve capital and liquidity.
Tax Information: The Fund’s distributions are primarily exempt from regular federal income tax. A portion of these distributions, however, may be subject to federal alternative minimum tax (AMT) and state and local taxes. The Fund may also make distributions that are taxable to you as ordinary income or capital gains.
