Industry

ABN AMRO Holdings of Amsterdam will acquire Alleghany Asset Management of Chicago for $825 million, the companies announced last week.

Zurich On-Line Financing, a subsidiary of Zurich Financial Services Group of Zurich, Switz., plans to form a new investment management company and introduce an interval fund exclusively for wealthy investors, with Thomas Weisel Partners, a merchant bank in San Francisco. Zurich Financial is also the parent of Scudder Kemper Investments of New York.

It is likely that more mutual funds will be liquidated this year than ever before, according to a study by Wiesenberger, Thomson Financial of Rockville, Md., a mutual fund tracking service. The record for the number of funds liquidated in one year, set in 1998, is 222. If the pace set so far this year is sustained, over 260 funds will be liquidated in 2000, according to the study. This assumes that as has occurred in the past ten years, over fifty percent of fund liquidations will occur in the last quarter of the year, according to the study. Wiesenberger is a division of Thomson Financial, the publisher of this newsletter.

In an unusual joint proxy statement filed Oct. 11, Credit Suisse Asset Management of New York, the adviser to the closed-end Indonesia Fund and NAM-USA, the manager of the closed-end Jakarta Growth Fund, announced plans to seek shareholder approval to merge the two geographically related but separately-managed funds. NAM-U.S.A. is the U.S. subsidiary of Nomura Asset Management of Tokyo.

Liberty Financial of Boston is asking shareholders of its Liberty Newport Global Equity Fund to approve plans to liquidate the fund and merge it with the Liberty Newport Global Utility Fund, according to a preliminary proxy statement filed with the SEC Oct. 12.

The Bank of New York has completed the acquisition of Ivy Asset Management of Garden City, NY., the bank announced last week. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Firstar Corporation of Milwaukee has agreed to merge with U.S. Bancorp of Minneapolis through an exchange of shares valued at $21.2 billion, Firstar announced last week. The transaction, in which Firstar will exchange 1.265 shares of common stock for each share of U.S. Bancorp common stock in a tax-free exchange, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2001, Firstar said.

MutualFunds.com of Boston is selling its domain name. The sale is part of a reorganization of the Internet start-up, which was originally founded as a mutual fund site to provide a wide variety of services to the industry, according to Abe Gorelick, senior vice president of marketing at MutualFunds.com. The 20-person company will now focus on providing online education and training for the financial services industry.

Acorn Investment Trust, a series of five no-load funds were to become load funds Sept. 29, at the same time the sale of the funds' advisor, Wanger Asset Management of Chicago, to Liberty Financial of Boston was to close, said Marilyn Morrison, a spokesperson for Wanger Asset Management.

Two fund groups whose advisers are owned by Irish Allied Bank of Dublin, Ireland have merged. Four funds offered by Govett Funds of San Francisco have been merged into four funds offered by ARK Funds of Oaks, Pa., the companies announced last week.