Following the laws of Shariah
From The Wall Street Journal
Commerzbank AG is launching an Islamic mutual fund that follows Koran investing laws, underscoring the growing market for retail funds for Muslims around the world. Commerzbank's AlSukoor European Equity Fund will be launched in the Middle East in January and then offered to Muslims living in Germany within six months. The Muslim community has turned increasingly to equity funds in the past couple of years as this form of investment has become more accepted by Islamic-law experts. The fund will follow the Shariah law, which prohibits investments in companies involved with alcohol, pork, tobacco, gambling, defense, arms, the military and any production or distribution of pornographic material. Shariah law also limits investing in all banking and other money-lending or interest-gathering businesses, such as insurance companies. Shariah-law prohibitions extend to investments in hotels and airlines, which sell alcohol on their premises.

Investors give the gift of inflows
From The Wall Street Journal
Tis the season for giving and as friends and families receive gifts of plenty mutual funds are not being forgotten. Many asset management firms are reporting healthy net new fund-share sales so far in November, continuing and surpassing the pattern of solid inflows in October. Investors socked away a net $20.42 billion in stock mutual funds last month, nearly double the $10.79 billion that they stashed into stock funds in September, according to the Investment Company Institute. For the year to October, net new money in the nation's stock mutual funds totaled $142.9 billion, slightly ahead of 1998's $141 billion.

UAM shake up and shake out
From The Boston Globe
As reported yesterday on the MFWire.com, United Asset Management Corp. saw its number two leader suddenly resign and its longstanding top executive and founder say he would retire soon. The Boston Globe indicated that the surprise changes reflected fundamental problems with UAM's core strategy, leaving a question mark over the company's immediate future and prompted talk that UAM might undertake a dramatic restructuring or spin off some of its languishing assets.
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The Boston Herald

Life after Janus
From TheStreet.com
TheStreet profiles Tom Marsico's funds after two years of business. Life after Janus is good, according to Marsico who opened his own company in late 1997 and started the Marsico Capital Focus and Growth & Income funds. Investors have piled in, and Marsico now manages $11 billion in mutual funds and private accounts. His own no-load funds have taken in more than $1 billion this year through Sept. 30, according to Financial Research Corp.

Warburg-Pincus is merging its Post-Venture Capital fund into its Global Post-Venture fund. A case where the whale is being swallowed by the guppy with a better record. According to Lipper, the two funds have $68.8 million in combined assets, but the surviving fund, Global Post-Venture, accounts for just $7.4 million of that total.  

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