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The name Orbitex may not be a household name in the mutual fund industry, but the chief executive officer of Orbitex Management of New York plans to change that and make his company a well-known brand within the next year.

A system which some industry lawyers say has become an anachronism for large mutual fund complexes - having one board of directors for each mutual fund in a complex - may be headed for extinction.

The San Francisco investment bank of Hambrecht & Quist, known for taking companies public, is banking on that same line of business with its first open-end mutual fund.

A State Street Research mutual fund that is designed for professional athletes and their coaches and families has grown significantly since it opened last year.

The courts have dealt another setback to shareholders challenging the independence of mutual fund directors.

Mathers Fund of Chicago merged with Gabelli Asset Management of Rye, N.Y. on June 21. Henry G. Van der Eb, formerly chief executive of the Mathers Fund, is now president and CEO of the Gabelli Mathers Fund, which will remain in Chicago. Van der Eb said the deal will close subject to shareholder approval, with the shareholder meeting expected to take place in late July or early August.

NASD Regulation has posted on its web site, www.NASDR.com, responses to frequently asked questions about NASDR's new non-cash compensation rules for the sale of mutual funds and variable annuities. The information, posted in a question-and-answer format, covers 22 areas which have drawn inquiries from NASD members. The new rules took effect Jan. 1 and limit how sales contests can be used to reward intermediaries for mutual fund and variable annuity sales.

Three former executives of PanAgora Asset Management of Boston have formed a new fund company, Arrowstreet Capital LP, which will open next month in Cambridge, Mass. Bruce Clark, Peter Rathjens and John Campbell, all formerly of PanAgora, will hold a majority stake in their new company.

Friends Ivory & Sime of London has acquired a 15 percent stake in Sumisei Global Investment Trust Management Co., a $2 billion mutual fund company based in Tokyo. Friends Ivory & Sime executives said the firm took the stake to establish a foothold in Japan with a partner that has a dominant market position.

TransNations Investments LLC of New York last week said it has begun offering shares of the Amidex35 mutual fund. The fund invests in companies in the newly-formed Amidex35 Index. The index includes selected stocks listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and Israeli companies listed on major U.S. exchanges. The Amidex35 fund has no sales charge and TransNations intends to use the Internet as the primary channel for retail sales.

Payden & Rygel of Los Angeles launched a new fund, the California Municipal Income Fund, on June 15. The fund invests in a diversified portfolio of debt securities that pay interest and dividend income exempt from California state and federal taxes.

EDGAR Online of Norwalk, Conn., in partnership with National Filing Service of New York, began offering a new service June 14 that will enable companies to file their Schedule 13D and 13G documents via the Internet. The SEC requires individuals or companies to file such documents once they acquire more than five percent of a company.

The Investment Company Institute has prevailed in its dispute with the Securities Industry Association over a proposed change in the law which prohibits transactions between a broker/dealer and its affiliated mutual funds.

Nvest of Boston has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Kobrick Funds, a family of three growth funds based in Boston, from Cendant Corp. of Parsippany, N.J. later this summer.

T. Rowe Price of Baltimore, Md. is using Extranet technology to provide administrative services and reporting for its 1,000 401(k) plan sponsors.

"We should send letters to the parents of the Gen X'ers telling them to tell their kids to join their 401(k) plans,'" Kathy Sharpless, managing director and director of communications of Putnam Investments, remembers a dean from a leading college saying at a 401(k) roundtable that Putnam held a year ago.

FMR Corp., the parent company of Fidelity Investments of Boston, plans to sell $750 million in corporate bonds, the company and independent credit rating agencies said last week. The funds will be used for general corporate purposes, said Thomas Eidson, a Fidelity spokesperson. Fidelity has no plans to use the proceeds to acquire another company or as the first step in going public, Eidson said. He declined to disclose details of Fidelity's plans, citing federal securities laws' limitations on public comment while the sale is pending. The sale marks the first time that Fidelity has issued corporate bonds.

Salomon Smith Barney and SSB Citi Asset Management Group, both of New York, have introduced a new 401(k) program aimed at small to mid-size companies. Called k Choice, it is Citigroup's first 401(k) program to offer mutual funds from all three of SSB Citi Asset Management's fund families: Salomon Brothers Mutual Funds, Smith Barney Mutual Funds and CitiFunds.

E*Trade Group of Palo Alto, Calif., the online discount brokerage, has announced plans to buy Telebanc Financial Corp. of Arlington, Va., the largest online bank in the U.S. However, it is still unclear how this might affect E*Trade's mutual fund business.

OppenheimerFunds of New York is creating a new fund family that will be sub-advised by Trinity Investment Management Corp. of Boston, a recent acquisition.