Liberty/SoGen Deal Collapses

Liberty Financial Companies and Societe Generale Asset Management have called off Liberty Financial's planned $216 million purchase of the adviser to the SoGen Funds because of declining assets in SoGen funds. Liberty said that SoGen had failed to meet minimum asset requirements for the deal to occur. The SoGen funds, with approximately $3 billion in assets, lost roughly 25 percent of their assets in the last six months of 1998, according to Financial Research Corp., a fund tracking firm in Boston. SoGen's four funds had total net redemptions of approximately $1 billion from July 1 through Dec. 31, according to FRC.