Chicago-based Morningstar has long been well positioned to service 401(k) and other defined contribution plan providers with investment advice. Now, it is reaching into the large plan sponsor arena with its purchase of privately held mPower, a San Francisco company that provides online advice to participants of defined contribution plans.

Victory Capital Management, the asset management division of KeyCorp, will acquire NewBridge Partners, a growth equity investment management firm with $2 billion in assets.

Janus Capital Group Inc. has moved to expand its Asian distribution by signing an agreement to offer its funds through 30 Taiwan banks. The move comes as its assets under management fell again in the first quarter.

Delaware Investments of Philadelphia and Linsco/Private Ledger (LPL Financial) of San Diego and Boston have wrapped up the details of an agreement to partner for a brand new mutual fund wrap program that will launch in September with a $15,000 account minimum.

Northern Trust is selling Northern Trust Retirement Consulting to Hewitt Associates. The division provides 200 companies and more than one million participants with defined benefit, defined contribution, recordkeeping and customer service, including health administration services for retirees.

Faced with its weakest quarterly revenue level in over four years and running out of room to cut costs, Charles Schwab said it would look at other ways to increase income and shore up profits.

Wachovia Corp. agreed to acquire the retirement-services recordkeeping and third-party servicing business of PFPC, a member of The PNC Financial Services Group.

Faced with its weakest quarterly revenue level in over four years and running out of room to cut costs, Charles Schwab said it would look at other ways to increase income and shore up profits.

Margin pressures may hasten the pace of consolidation in the fund industry, indicates a report from Lipper of New York, issued last week.

The Bank of New York (BONY) has just signed managed account deals with insurance giant ING Group and a small North Carolina trust company to expand its managed account niche by supplying products to smaller companies and back-office services to larger ones.

If you ignored the fact that this tale involved mutual funds, it would read more like a soap opera.

AMR Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, the parent company of American Airlines, is considering giving flight to its entire investment management unit, including its proprietary mutual fund unit.

As Wall Street's woes continue, mutual fund executives have come to think of their industry as a drawing on an Etch-A-Sketch. When it gets messed up, they can shake it up and draw it over again.

July

Many fund companies are at a crossroads, according to Charles O'Neill, president, Diversified Management Resources. In order to keep costs down, many complexes that built out during the boom years of the 1990s are going to have to drop part of their business and concentrate more on specific areas, O'Neill said. "Fund companies are going to have to decide essentially whether they are product distributors or product manufacturers. That's what it comes down to," O'Neill said.

If Wade Dokken, CEO of American Skandia, is a betting man, he may be about to lose his shirt. In March of this year, when MFMN asked him about the likelihood of a sale of the company, he responded, "I'll take all those side bets."

Denver mutual fund giant Janus' protracted fight to spin off of its parent, Stilwell Financial, of Kansas City, Mo., has yielded it a more astounding prize. Control of Stilwell.

At the start of 2002, fund families held off merging or liquidating their weaker funds for one quarter while awaiting a market rebound. When it didn't come, fund share class mergers and liquidations skyrocketed back up to their record levels of 2001.

State Street Corp. of Boston plans to buy International Fund Services, a Dublin alternative investment and hedge fund manager and custodian. The purchase, State Street's second in the hedge fund business and its first in global custody, rounds out the services State Street needs to enter the hedge fund management and custody business, according to the firm.

As a result of a 10% decline in assets since the end of 2000, John Hancock Funds of Boston is on the hunt for a few more outside mutual funds or small fund families that it can acquire and merge into its $18.7 billion family of 50 funds. The fund complex is a wholly owned subsidiary of John Hancock Financial Services, which collectively manages $29 billion in open- and closed-end funds, separate accounts and retirement plans.