About Thomas Donahue
Thomas Donahue, Vice President, Treasurer, Chief Financial Officer & Director at Federated Hermes, has spoken publicly about the mutual fund industry and market conditions. In a 2013 Senate hearing, Donahue defended sponsor support for money market funds, comparing it to supporting a family and arguing that such support demonstrates the "inherent resiliency of the funds." He stated that fund sponsors are "making independent voluntary marketplace analysis and judgments" and noted that firms are "100% on waiving investment advisory fees" to keep funds viable during low interest rates. Donahue also described the $2.6 trillion in money funds as "an accomplishment" despite what he called "lots of regulatory abuse."
In a 2012 interview, Donahue expressed optimism about the stock market, predicting an S&P 500 level of 1,450 that year. He discussed new fund offerings, including a floating rate strategic income fund and an unconstrained bond fund, and described the challenges of running an asset management business amid volatility and regulatory uncertainty. Regarding Dodd-Frank, Donahue said the law was "not exactly fully impacting" at the time and that it was "very challenging to figure out how it will be listed." Separately, in 2011, Donahue delivered opening remarks at a conference on Cuban economic policies, criticizing the Cuban government's labor policies and quoting President Obama's statement that "Cuban authorities must take meaningful actions to respect the basic rights of the Cuban people."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Thomas Donahue's recent appearances.
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Transcript (2 segments)
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Senator Tumi0:03
Senator Tumi, thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to direct several questions to Mr. Donahue. Thanks to all of you for being here today. The first question would be in response to Chairman Shapiro's point. One of the central arguments that she seems to be making is that the past instances in which sponsors provided some degree of voluntary support to their money funds means that these funds are not as safe as they appear. I think that's one of our central arguments. Could you respond to that premise?
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Thomas Donahue0:40
Yes, Senator. We create a lot of funds. I'm one of 13 kids, have eight of my own, and we create a lot of children too, and they're forever supporting them. So the idea that you support funds and you look at any other kind of product, people are supporting their products. What are they trying to do? They're making independent voluntary marketplace analysis and judgments about what to do with a product. So, you know, I don't know anything about the 300, the 200, none of that really matters. What matters is that you have good solid people deciding whether or not and what to do to help shareholders. I think that what the support shows is the inherent resiliency of the funds. I mean, when you have $2.6 trillion in these funds with no interest and lots of regulatory abuse, that's really an accomplishment. It's because the people want the cash management system. And if you talk about support in terms of what was done that the chairman was talking about, how about the support that every single one is doing 100% on waving investment advisory fees in order to keep the funds going during these low interest times? So I look at support as something that is not unlike having a family. You birth the fund, well what are you going to do about keeping it going? We also merge funds out of existence, we buy other funds and put them out of existence. But overall, we're trying to enhance the relationship with the clients, some of whom are at this table, in the way they deal in the marketplace.
