Putnam Investments announced Thursday that it was liquidating the institutional Putnam Prime Money Market Fund and distributing the funds $15 billion in assets due to marketwide liquidity issues and high redemptions on Wednesday, rather than to exposure to uncreditworthy investments in AIG, Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual.
The fund has a minimum initial investment of $10 million and maintained a $1 NAV as of Tuesday.
Serious constraints on liquidity in money market instruments created the risk that in order to process redemptions, the fund would realize losses in selling its portfolio securities, Putnam said.