The Prudential Insurance Company of America of Newark, N.J. announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire a majority interest in Hochman & Baker of Northbrook, Ill., a firm that trains accountants to offer investment products to its clients.

Deutsche Bank of Frankfurt, Germany announced last week it will combine the no-load funds from its subsidiaries, Morgan Grenfell of New York and Bankers Trust of New York, to create a new no-load fund family under the Deutsche name.

Prudential Insurance Company of Newark, N.J. has purchased a majority stake in the third-largest independent fund management company in Mexico. Prudential last week acquired a 51 percent interest in Apolo Operadora de Sociedades de Inversion of Mexico City. The new company will be named Prudential Apolo Operadora de Sociedades de Inversion. Both companies declined to disclose how much Prudential paid for Apolo Operadora.

Salomon Smith Barney of New York has filed a registration statement with the SEC to ask shareholders of its closed-end Greenwich Street Municipal Fund and shareholders of its open-end Smith Barney Managed Municipals Fund to merge the former fund into the latter. If approved, the proxy vote will take place Feb. 11.

Pimco Advisors, LP of Newport Beach, Calif. has agreed to sell one of its subsidiaries, Columbus Circle Trust Co. of Stamford, Conn., to Orbitex Financial Services Group. Terms of the deal, announced Nov. 2, were not disclosed.

Gartmore Investment Management of London, the pension and investment management unit of National Westminster Bank, also of London, is for sale.

Pilgrim Baxter & Associates of Wayne, Penn., which had been for sale, has now been taken off the auction block, according to a firm spokesperson.

Orbitex Financial Services Group of New York, parent to the investment adviser of the Orbitex Group of Funds, has acquired Clarke Lanzen Skalla Investment of Omaha, Neb., the company announced.

Liberty Funds Group of Boston has completed its year-long integration of its subsidiaries, Colonial Management Associates of Boston and Stein Roe Mutual Funds of Chicago.

Jean-Marie Eveillard, the prominent mutual fund portfolio manager, will remain with the SoGen Funds of New York for at least five years despite Eveillard's sale of his interest in the fund group. Eveillard and Societe Generale Asset Management of Paris are selling the SoGen Funds' investment adviser - Societe Generale Asset Management Corp. of New York - to Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder of New York. Eveillard, who owns about 20 percent of the fund adviser, has signed an employment contract to remain with the fund group as the person primarily responsible for its day-to-day management, according to a proxy statement the funds filed with the SEC Oct. 22. In addition, Arnhold and Bleichroeder will pay Eveillard for his stake over approximately seven years, the proxy statement said. The purchase price for the firm was not disclosed.

Legg Mason of Baltimore, Md., has announced it has entered into a joint venture with Bingham Dana LLP, an international law firm based in Boston, to offer investment management and trust administration services for Bingham Dana's clients.

Two leading mutual fund companies and two brokerage firms are collaborating to develop an electronic communications network (ECN), yet to be named. The trading divisions of Fidelity Investments of Boston and Charles Schwab Corporation of San Francisco are joining with the DLJ and Pershing affiliates of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette of New York and Spear, Leads & Kellogg of New York to form a new ECN.

Liberty Funds Group of Boston announced that it is merging the equity trading functions of its mutual fund groups - Stein Roe Mutual Funds of Chicago and Colonial Management Associates of Boston - so that trades for both fund families will be done from one central location.

Orbitex Management of New York, investment adviser to the Orbitex Group of Funds, has announced the merger of the American Diversified Global Value Fund into the Orbitex Growth Fund.

Bad news for the mutual fund industry about the slowdown and concentration of net sales has just been compounded. Data shows that the market value of fund companies has declined 14 percent since 1997, while the market value of institutional asset management companies has risen 32 percent.

Legg Mason of Baltimore, Md., announced that it has acquired Berkshire Asset Management of Wilkes-Barre, Penn., a firm that manages assets for high-net-worth individuals and institutions.

Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. of New York said it would keep its mutual fund and annuity businesses separate from those of General American Life Insurance Co. of St. Louis, Mo. MetLife announced on Aug. 27 it would acquire General American, which had been unable to repay short-term funding agreements.

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.

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.