Industry

Prudential Insurance Company of Newark, N.J. has purchased a majority stake in the third-largest independent fund management company in Mexico. Prudential last week acquired a 51 percent interest in Apolo Operadora de Sociedades de Inversion of Mexico City. The new company will be named Prudential Apolo Operadora de Sociedades de Inversion. Both companies declined to disclose how much Prudential paid for Apolo Operadora.

Salomon Smith Barney of New York has filed a registration statement with the SEC to ask shareholders of its closed-end Greenwich Street Municipal Fund and shareholders of its open-end Smith Barney Managed Municipals Fund to merge the former fund into the latter. If approved, the proxy vote will take place Feb. 11.

Pimco Advisors, LP of Newport Beach, Calif. has agreed to sell one of its subsidiaries, Columbus Circle Trust Co. of Stamford, Conn., to Orbitex Financial Services Group. Terms of the deal, announced Nov. 2, were not disclosed.

Gartmore Investment Management of London, the pension and investment management unit of National Westminster Bank, also of London, is for sale.

Pilgrim Baxter & Associates of Wayne, Penn., which had been for sale, has now been taken off the auction block, according to a firm spokesperson.

Orbitex Financial Services Group of New York, parent to the investment adviser of the Orbitex Group of Funds, has acquired Clarke Lanzen Skalla Investment of Omaha, Neb., the company announced.

Liberty Funds Group of Boston has completed its year-long integration of its subsidiaries, Colonial Management Associates of Boston and Stein Roe Mutual Funds of Chicago.

Jean-Marie Eveillard, the prominent mutual fund portfolio manager, will remain with the SoGen Funds of New York for at least five years despite Eveillard's sale of his interest in the fund group. Eveillard and Societe Generale Asset Management of Paris are selling the SoGen Funds' investment adviser - Societe Generale Asset Management Corp. of New York - to Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder of New York. Eveillard, who owns about 20 percent of the fund adviser, has signed an employment contract to remain with the fund group as the person primarily responsible for its day-to-day management, according to a proxy statement the funds filed with the SEC Oct. 22. In addition, Arnhold and Bleichroeder will pay Eveillard for his stake over approximately seven years, the proxy statement said. The purchase price for the firm was not disclosed.

Legg Mason of Baltimore, Md., has announced it has entered into a joint venture with Bingham Dana LLP, an international law firm based in Boston, to offer investment management and trust administration services for Bingham Dana's clients.

Two leading mutual fund companies and two brokerage firms are collaborating to develop an electronic communications network (ECN), yet to be named. The trading divisions of Fidelity Investments of Boston and Charles Schwab Corporation of San Francisco are joining with the DLJ and Pershing affiliates of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette of New York and Spear, Leads & Kellogg of New York to form a new ECN.