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Following its acquisition of the right to manage and distribute all of Nicholas-Applegate's open-end funds, Pilgrim American Capital Corporation has placed its own name on those funds. Pilgrim made the change after obtaining approval from the Nicholas-Applegate board of trustees.

John Hancock Funds has begun offering level-load shares for nine more of its mutual funds, bringing to 21 its funds with this pricing option. Instead of charging a sales commission at the time of purchase or when the shares are redeemed, level loads spread the cost over time.

John Nuveen & Co. of Chicago has introduced an investment portfolio of ten companies based on Fortune magazine's "America's Most Admired Companies" list. Fortune compiles this list of ten outstanding companies each year, interviewing more than 10,000 analysts, top executives and board directors to ask them their opinions of companies' financial soundness, long-term investment value and use of corporate assets. Fortune also looks for outstanding innovation, product or service quality, management quality and employee talent.

SunAmerica Asset Corp. has introduced the Tax Managed Equity Fund, designed to produce high total returns and low taxes by using an optimization model developed by sub-adviser J.P. Morgan. J.P. Morgan first began offering this strategy of reducing capital gains taxes to high-net-worth clients in the 1980s. Steven Neamtz, executive vice president of SunAmerica Asset Management, believes investors will increasingly look to minimize after-tax returns.

The IDS Mutual Fund Group, the proprietary mutual funds of American Express Financial Corporation, wants to change its name and increase some fees it charges investors.

A small mutual fund with a strong track record - orphaned from its distributor because of troubles in the insurance industry - appears to have found a new home.

NEW YORK - The Clinton Administration would welcome testimonials from the mutual fund industry on the capability of the average American investor to make sound investment decisions for his social security funds, with the help of professionals, said Carolyn Weaver, a member of the Clinton Administration Social Security Advisory Board. Weaver spoke on privatization of the Social Security Administration at a symposium sponsored by MFS Investment Management to mark the 75th anniversary of its mutual funds.

The Mutual Fund Education Alliance will hold its seventh annual marketing seminar in San Francisco October 18-19th. The Alliance is based in Kansas City, Mo.

Vanguard has introduced the Tax-Managed Small-Cap Fund, a no-load fund aimed at reducing taxes by investing in a diversified portfolio of low-cost, small-capitalization stocks that promise long-term capital growth and nominal current income.

Stein Roe of Chicago is taking public the Small Company Growth Fund, which is co-managed by Bill Garrison and Steve Saplopek. Their strategy is to invest in 120 to 150 stocks of firms that have substantial growth possibilities and strong management teams. Stein Roe launched the fund in 1996 as a multi-cap fund.

To celebrate its 75th anniversary, Fidelity Investments of Boston has produced nine 30-minute educational videotapes, derived from the 720-page course book written by the company's president, Robert Pozen ("The Mutual Fund Business", MIT Press, 1998).

Aegon, the insurance giant with $147 billion in assets which recently announced plans to acquire Transamerica, has just reported that its 1998 net profits rose 25 percent to $1.36 billion, from $1.1 billion a year earlier. Aegon forecasts further growth this year, although at a slower pace of 18 to 20 percent, the company said in a statement.

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.

Nvest has begun providing its defined contribution wholesale customers with quarterly updates of fund holdings and returns for its 15 affiliates, data which up until now has not been available to plan sponsors, according to the company.

Mutual fund companies have found it difficult to make major inroads in the small business market, but Fidelity Investments is trying to make headway by selling and administering plans directly over the Internet.

An "intelligent document," or IDOC system, created by NeoMedia Technologies of Fort Myers, Fla. can link readers directly to the Internet or to another database site from an annual report or financial statement on software. The product is being marketed by Scott Printing of New Providence, New Jersey. By clicking on a key word or bar code embedded in the document, the IDOC technology can redirect a reader to a company's website or to another area in the electronic document, to learn more about what they are reading. Scott Printing believes delivering information initially in a succinct manner, and then in greater levels of detail, will allow mutual fund and investment companies to provide information more clearly to investors.

Undiscovered Managers Funds has expanded its roster of nine funds with two new international funds, the UM International Equity Fund and the UM International Small Cap Equity Fund. The investment objective of both funds is capital appreciation by investing in publicly traded stocks in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Edgar Online now allows individuals to receive e-mail alerts of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar reports through a new service called Edgar Online Personal. Located at www.edgar-online.com/personal, the service costs $9.95 a month, although a free trial is available at www.edgar-online.com/trial.asp?src=eolpt. Users can supply up to ten variables, including ticker symbol, industry group, filing type, filing category and geography to define information most important to them.

Barrett Associates of New York has introduced the Barrett Growth Fund, a no-load, long-term capital appreciation fund designed to benefit from long-term capital gains tax rates and low overhead.

WASHINGTON - The corporate structure that the mutual fund industry says is a key to its effectiveness - the system which permits independent mutual fund directors to serve on numerous boards in the same fund complex - appears unlikely to change any time soon.