Pittsburgh-based Federated Investors is using the down market to vacuum up fund assets from banks. Today, the fund firm said it will take over eight funds from Riggs National. The funds have roughly $470 million in assets, including $47.5 million in two domestic equity funds, $127.9 million in four fixed-income funds and $294.2 million in two money market funds.

The deal is one of a string that Federated has made since the stock market peaked in 2000. Since that time it has purchased roughly $3.9 billion in mutual fund assets, including $346 million from Investment Advisors, $148 million from Lincoln Investment Planning, $250 million from FirstMerit Funds and $3.2 billion through its purchase of the Kaufmann Fund.

Federated will fold the Riggs offerings into eight similar funds inside its own family of funds. Officials at the two firms said that both the boards of directors of the Federated Funds and the Riggs Funds approved the planned transitions and that they expect shareholders to approve the transactions in September 2003.

"Federated's long history of serving Riggs, coupled with our broad investment expertise, provides an ideal opportunity for Riggs to transition its mutual fund franchise into eight historically strong Federated funds," said Christopher Donahue, president and CEO of Federated Investors, Inc. in a statement. "Federated will continue to pursue growth through other bank fund asset transactions as we're witnessing a strong trend toward these opportunities."

"Riggs is committed to providing our wealth management clients with an open architecture service model that emphasizes institutional-quality asset allocation and a wide selection of high-quality investment products," stated Robert L. Allbritton, chairman and CEO of Riggs National Corporation. "This transaction makes strategic sense for Riggs and delivers value to Riggs' shareholders. It also ensures that our fund shareholders will have a solid financial partner. With its significant breadth of competitive investment products and a thriving franchise, Riggs has valued and trusted Federated for more than twenty years."

The funds to be merged include:

Riggs Stock into Federated Capital Appreciation-A

Riggs Small Company Stock into Federated Kaufmann Fund-A

U.S. Government Securities into Federated Total Return Govt. Bond-SS

Bond into Federated Total Return Bond-SS

Riggs Short Tax Free Bond into Federated Short Muni Trust-SS

Riggs Intermediate Tax Free Bond into Federated Intermediate Muni Trust-IS

Riggs Prime Money Market Fund into Federated Automated Cash Management Trust-SS

Riggs U.S. Treasury Money Market into Federated Automated Government Trust  

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