At Putnam, Writing Was on the Wall

Putnam Investments, rattled by subpar performance, earlier this week announced a broad restructuring that will include the ouster of a dozen fund managers and elimination, by merger, of six equity mutual funds.

In recent months, Putnam has managed to qualify only one of its equity funds in the "A" category of grades computed by TheSteet.com Ratings. The company's 41 funds are summarized in an accompanying table showing their breakdown by percentages in the various grade categories since December 2007.

The portion of Putnam equity funds in the "D" and "E" ranges, which equate with "sell" recommendations, has fluctuated between 39% and 63%, as can be seen in a second table. ...