Less than two months after heading out the door from Merrill Lynch, the partners of Causeway Capital Management have started the paperwork to open their first mutual fund. Sarah H. Ketterer, Harry Hartford and James Doyle will be the portfolio managers of the fund. Ketterer is also the firm's chief executive and Hartford its president.

All three left Merrill Lynch's Los Angeles office (formerly Hotchkiss and Wiley) in June to open their own shop. The team managed more than $3 billion at Merrill. The firm's first fund is expected to launch by the end of 2001.

The executives left Merrill when they perceived that they would not be able to receive equity in the business and after they declined to sign a non-compete agreement. At the time Merrill was reportedly shopping the unit to Stilwell Financial, a deal for which it was trying to put the agreements in place.

The departure of the key executives caused that deal to fail and the firm was subsequently sold to an employee group led by George Davis. Merrill then moved its international management from Los Angeles to Princeton and London as part of the shuffle.

Merrill also responded to the defections by waiving fees on its international offerings to Hotchkiss and Wiley clients through the end of the year.

Still, Causeway now employees at least a dozen and has landed the endowment of Wake Forest, a former Hotchkiss client, as an initial client. The university reportedly has placed $50 million with Causeway.

The new fund will be the Causeway International Value Fund, according to SEC filings made this week.

The fund will offer two share classes; an individual class and an institutional class. The individual class will require minimum investments of $5,000 and carry a 25 basis point shareholder services fee. The institutional class will sport minimum investments of $1 million and have no shareholder services fee. Each class also will carry an initial two percent redemption fee for ninety days.  

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