With widespread consolidation in the mutual fund industry, many industry observers have predicted the demise of mid- to-small-sized fund companies.

Opposites attract and when they do, adjustments need to be made as will no doubt be the case with the mutual fund families of BankBoston and Fleet Bank.

Phoenix Investment Partners of Hartford has completed its acquisition of the mutual fund business of Zweig Fund Group of New York for $135 million plus up to $29 million over the next three years, depending on revenue growth. With this acquisition, Phoenix has renamed the Zweig and Euclid open-end mutual funds the Phoenix-Zweig Funds and Phoenix-Euclid Funds. Phoenix currently has $57.5 billion of assets under management.

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.

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.

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.

It has not yet been determined whether Aegon's acquisition of Transamerica will mean Aegon's IDEX mutual funds and Transamerica's Premier Funds will be marketed together or if the two companies' sales teams will be merged, according to company spokespersons. But, the well-known Transamerica name will continue to be used after the deal closes sometime between June and August, a Transamerica spokesperson said. And, the Transamerica brand name and logo will probably be extended to Aegon products, the spokesperson said.

Analytic Investors, the quantitative money manager in Los Angeles with roughly $1 billion in assets under management, is renewing efforts to expand sales of its retail mutual funds.

Affiliated Managers Group of Boston, an asset management holding company, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase The Managers Funds, the advisor to a $1.8 billion no-load fund family of ten funds. The Managers Funds will continue to operate from its offices in Norwalk, Conn. The acquisition is expected to close in the spring.

T. Rowe Price Associates plans to join the growing list of mutual fund companies entering the money management business in Japan.

SSB Citi Asset Management Group of New York, a division of Citigroup, announced that its two Australian investment operations, Salomon Smith Barney Asset Management Australia (SSBAM Australia) and Citibank Global Asset Management (CGAM) will be combined.

Freedom Capital Management, an asset management firm based in Boston with $7 billion in assets under management, announced that it has formed a partnership with Essex Corporation of New York, a distributor of mutual funds, annuities and life insurance to banks. Under the partnership, Essex Corporation will provide Freedom Capital's family of six FundManager Portfolios, which are funds-of-funds, to more than 150 banks and broker/dealers across the country.

Alliance Capital Management and Hanwha Securities announced the signing of a letter of intent for Alliance Capital to assume full control of Hanwha Investment Trust (HITCO), a Korean investment management company.

The boards of Scudder New Europe Fund and Kemper Europe Fund announced their approval of the reorganization of both funds into a single open-end fund. The combination must be approved by shareholders of both funds.

The U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian financial services company has joined with a mutual fund firm to seek the assets of high net-worth investors here and in Canada.

Funds Distributor Incorporated (FDI) of Boston announced it has expanded its business relationship with Dresdner RCM Global Investors, a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank, one of the world's largest financial organizations.

Principal Financial Group of Des Moines announced that it will acquire Professional Pensions Incorporated (PPI) of East Haven, Conn.

Paine Webber Group and the Yasuda Mutual Life Insurance Company are forming a joint venture to develop, sponsor and manage mutual funds and other retail asset management products in Japan. The Tokyo-based venture will be called Yasuda PaineWebber Mutual Fund Company. It will offer money market, reserved and capital guaranteed funds, 401(k) equivalent pension plans, mutual fund wrap accounts and other retail asset management products. The board of directors of the new company will consist of three senior executives from Yasuda and two from PaineWebber. Yasuda has been a shareholder in PaineWebber since 1987, and now holds about eight percent of the firm's outstanding stock. It is Japan's oldest life insurance company and the seventh-largest in assets.

Charles Schwab will not be wasting any time building on its new Canadian foothold to take on the bank owned firms that dominate the Canadian discount brokerage industry.