Legg Mason Bids For Mackenzie
From CBS MarketWatch
Legg Mason is making a bid north of the border for Mackenzie Financial. The Baltimore-based fund firm is reported to be taking the lead in a three firm team. C.I. Fund Management made a hostile bid for the firm in November.

Money Market Assets Hit Record
From Wall Street Journal
Money-market funds assets are at a record $1,921 billion, according to the Money Fund Report newsletter, after raking in $20.38 billion of net inflows in the week ended Tuesday. Interestingly institutional investors put money in these funds ($21.42 billion) even as retail investors redeemed ($1.04 billion).

Citibank Drops Loads in Asia
From Wall Street Journal
Citibank's is dropping the load on funds sold by its Asia-Pacific division. The funds, which carry a declining back-end load of 1 percent to 4 percent, made their debut in Singapore last week and they are scheduled to make their debut in Hong Kong in March and in Japan and Taiwan later in the year. The paper reports that the normal front-end load in Asia is 5 percent. "It's about time in the market, not timing the market," Malik Sarwar, regional head of Citibank's investments business, is quoted as saying.

Putnam Raises Record Cash
From Boston Herald
Putnam Investments took in $6.1 billion for its new buyout fund being raised by Boston's Thomas H. Lee & Co. The reported target for the leveraged-buyout fund was $5.5 billion.

Tech Interval Funds Make Debut
From TheStreet.com
Van Wagoner and Scudder Weisel both opened new venture capital focused funds yesterday, reports TheStreet.com. Both are interval funds that will invest heavily in pre-IPO technology ventures, it reports. The Van Wagoner Private Opportunities fund is targeting $150 million in assets and Scudder Weisel is aiming for $500 million for its Capital Entrepreneurs fund.

Biotech Sinks
From Wall Street Journal
The bear continues to maul the "concept sectors" of the market. Biotechnology and health-care funds are both off to a poor start in 2001, the paper reports. Highlighted in the article is Framlington Health fund and Sectoral Asset Management's Pictet G.S.F. Biotech fund and the CF Bio-Tech fund in London.

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