Fund Probe Hits Bank One Flows

Published October 21, 2003, 1:00 a.m. EDT

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Bank Ones fund family took a heavy hit in September, according to monthly fund flow figures released Friday by Lipper Inc.

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Aggregate data from Lipper showed that the four fund families named Sept. 3 by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in his mutual fund trading investigation had about $7.9 billion of net outflows last month. These outflows accounted for 25% of the industry's outflows for the month.

Julie Crothers, a spokeswoman for Bank One, said, "Our long-term fund flows have been flat, and it is not unusual to have billion-dollar-a-day volatility in money market funds."

Janus Capital Corp. had reported on Oct. 8 that it had $4.4 billion of net outflows in September as its assets under management fell to $146.5 billion. Investors withdrew a net $3.4 billion from its stock and bond funds, and money market funds had $1 billion of net redemptions.

Don Cassidy, an analyst at Lipper who prepared its report, said Bank Ones One Group of mutual funds had between $2.625 billion and $2.8 billion of the remaining $3.5 billion of net outflows from the four companies. Bank Ones outflows were mostly in bond and money funds, he said, which it emphasizes among its $171 billion of fund assets.

Lippers aggregate data implied outflows from Bank of America Corp. and Strong Capital Management funds of between $700 million and $875 million. A spokesman for Bank of America said its Nations Funds family had inflows in September. And Strong said Friday that its equity funds alone had net outflows of $69 million, or less than one-third of 1% of its $20.9 billion of equity assets under management at Sept. 30.