Mutual funds

The future of the mutual fund industry will not be as patrician as its past. The U.S. is becoming less white, and the percentage of homes in which English is the first language diminishes all the time. Minorities like Hispanics and Asians make up an increasing percentage of the population.

E*Trade of Palo Alto, Calif. plans to expand its family of index funds with an Internet index fund. The new fund, the E*Trade E-Commerce Index Fund, was filed with the SEC on July 26. The fund will invest in the stocks in the Goldman Sachs E-Commerce Composite Index, which tracks companies that derive most of their revenue online or sell e-commerce infrastructure.

Allianz Group of Munich, Germany is developing its breadth of financial products in the U.S. and is planning a family of mutual funds to be sold here.

Barclays Global Investors - the giant institutional money management firm in San Francisco - is planning to offer 51 exchange-traded index funds, a lineup that is expected to raise the firm's presence among retail investors and increase competition in a slice of the open-end index fund market.

Texas money manager J. Paul Hamilton is getting into a part of the mutual fund business that does not get a lot of attention - the irrevocable trust business.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter of New York plans to introduce a growth fund that will invest in the companies at which teenagers spend their money.

Nomura IBJ Global Investment Advisors of New York plans to offer by year-end defined contribution pension plans modeled on 401(k) plans in the U.S. Nomura IBJ Global is a joint venture between Nomura Securities and the Industrial Bank of Japan Ltd., both headquartered in Tokyo.

Guinness Flight Global Asset Management has won the license to the Internet Stock Index from internet.com Corp. of Westport, Conn. Guinness Flight has filed with the SEC to create a new no-load fund, the Guinness Flight internet.com Index Fund, which is expected to be available to investors on July 30.

Dow Jones Indexes of Princeton, N.J., has established a new index that will track multi-national companies. The Dow Jones Titans Index will watch 50 of the world's largest multi-national companies. Both John Nuveen & Co. and Nike Securities L.P. are expected to start products that use the index by the third quarter of the year, according to Dow Jones Indexes.

American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo., has enhanced its quarterly customer account statements to reflect individual rates of return in each customer's personal portfolio, as opposed to providing performance figures for each fund in its family. For instance, if a particular fund has increased 12 percent in the quarter but represents only 15 percent of the investor's portfolio, the statement indicates that fund's contribution to the investor's portfolio is 0.8 percent (15 percent of 12 percent.)

Prudential Investments of Newark, N.J., has raised $391 million during its 31-day initial offering period for its three new sector funds (MFMN 6/14/99).

A division of U.S. Trust Co. of Boston is managing two socially-conscious index funds that depart from their peers by trying to beat the S&P 500 rather than special indexes filled with socially-screened stocks.

Fidelity Investments of Boston has created a new index fund of funds. The new fund, the Fidelity Four-in-One Index Fund, invests in the Spartan Market, the Spartan Extended Market, the Spartan International and the Fidelity U.S. Bond index funds. The fund will invest 55 percent of assets in the Spartan Market Index Fund, which mimics the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, and split remaining assets equally between the three other funds.

ING Funds Trust of Philadelphia, Pa., made its ING Internet Fund available to the public on July 6. But already, the fund company is talking about closing the fund.

INVESCO Funds Group of Denver, Colo., has opened two money market funds, originally intended only for institutional investors, to the retail market. These are the INVESCO Treasurer's Money Market Reserve Fund and the INVESCO Treasurer's Tax Exempt Reserve Fund.

Mackenzie Investment Management, a mutual fund investment adviser in Boca Raton, Fla., has launched a new family of five international funds of funds. Mackenzie calls this fund family International Solutions.

Berger Funds of Denver, Colo., has renamed its InformationTech 100 Fund the Berger Information Technology Fund. The fund will invest in companies offering hardware, software, networking and communications. This fund invests with a longer investment horizon than other technology funds, the company said in a statement.

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.

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.