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Investors in the $40 million Navellier Aggressive Small Cap Equity Fund may not have to pay the costs of a lawsuit between the fund's adviser and two of its trustees.

Pioneer Investment Management of Boston has purchased the tiny $8.8 million Third Avenue High Yield Fund from EQSF Advisers, the New York-based adviser to the five fund Third Avenue Trust fund complex, for an undisclosed amount. As part of the arrangement, Margaret Patel, the fund's current portfolio manager, will continue to manage the fund. Pending approval of Third Avenue High Yield fund shareholders, the fund will become the Pioneer High Yield Fund.

The multiples for mutual fund companies are about eight percent less than the multiples for money management firms that run institutional assets, according to data released last week by Putnam, Lovell, de Guardiola & Thornton, the investment banking firm based in San Francisco. Data for year-to-date mergers and acquisitions of institutional and retail money management firms shows that institutional firms are being valued at 9.3 times annual pre-tax earnings and mutual fund companies are being valued at 8.6 times annual pre-tax earnings, the firm said.

The 59 Wall Street Funds, the small fund group of Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. of New York, appears to be the first in the industry to make changes in its requirements for directors as a result of a special industry report issued in June.

At a time when merger activity in the mutual fund industry has slowed, Western-Southern Enterprise, an insurance and financial services company in Cincinnati, Ohio, is increasing its mutual fund presence through acquisitions.

The SEC has sanctioned a Phoenix firm that frustrated a handful of closed-end funds with its controversial tactics - known as mini-tender offers - to buy fund shares from individual investors.

If Putnam Investments of Boston creates an Internet fund, a possibility furthered by the creation of a partnership with money manager Thomas H. Lee this summer, Internet funds would be well on their way to becoming mainstream.

The SEC is continuing to press the money management industry on year 2000, or Y2K, computer programming and compliance issues.

The newly adopted rules that govern the personal trading practices of portfolio managers contain few changes from the SEC's original proposal four years ago, regulators, mutual fund lawyers and consultants said last week.

Closed-end fund activist Ronald Olin is having the misfortune of getting what he wished for in a unique closed-end fund fight.

Employees in defined contribution plans invested their money wisely enough to reap an average return of 11 percent between 1985 and 1995, on par with the 12 percent return that defined benefit pension plan portfolio managers averaged in those 11 years, according to KPMG, the New York accounting and consulting firm. KPMG based its figures on Form 5500 series reports that companies are required to file with the Internal Revenue Service. KPMG published its findings in the August issue of "Benefits Spectrum", a newsletter it sends to clients.

Although Congress included much of what the mutual fund industry sought in a major tax cut bill - the Financial Freedom Act of 1999 - that legislation is likely to be vetoed by President Clinton next month.

Credit card companies commonly offer cash rewards and other prizes to encourage the use of their cards.

Mutual fund companies and the SEC are watching developments at General American Life Insurance Company of St. Louis, Mo. A handful of fund companies, including OppenheimerFunds of New York, Federated Investors of Pittsburgh, Northern Trust Corp. of Chicago and Alliance Capital Management LP of New York, hold in their money market funds, short-term funding agreements issued by General American. The firm was placed under the supervision of Missouri insurance regulators Aug. 11. Representatives of the funds said they expect their investments will be repaid. "It's illiquidity, not insolvency," said J.T. Tuskan, a spokesperson for Federated. The SEC is monitoring the situation, a spokesperson said.

The Strong Funds is acquiring a small Midwest discount broker/dealer and plans, at the same time, to create its own online brokerage. Strong Capital Management of Menomonee Falls, Wis., announced Aug. 12 that it is acquiring discount broker Ziegler Thrift Trading (ZTT).

Delaware Investments of Philadelphia believes that there is an appetite for institutional funds in defined contribution plans and has created a new 401(k) product that offers numerous institutional products to plan sponsors and participants.

Credit Suisse First Boston of New York and Tremont Advisors of Rye, N.Y. are teaming up to create a series of hedge fund indexes and products to go along with them.

J. & W. Seligman & Co. of New York is planning to offer four new mutual funds. The funds - the Seligman Time Horizon 30, Time Horizon 20, Time Horizon 10 and Harvester funds - are asset allocation funds. Seligman described its plans in a registration statement filed with the SEC Aug. 13.

There is a mutual fund product in development that could only be imagined in the age of Cyberspace - a value fund that plans to use Internet message boards to assist individual investors to influence the actions of public companies.

It could get a little easier for mutual fund companies to issue press releases next year.