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Article: Wall Street: fond of funds. (investment bank Morgan Stanley follows Merrill Lynch's success in retail business by acquiring mutual fund company Van Kampen American Capital, which manages $57 billion worth of assets)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 29, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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NEW YORK
THE intermediary's art has always been to serve issuers and investors at the same time. Most top investment banks have usually thought of the latter group as big institutions, such as pension and insurance funds. Retail investors were disdained as the province of lower-class brokers.
No longer, it seems. On June 24th Morgan Stanley, a top-tier investment bank, said it was paying around $1.2 billion to acquire Van Kampen American Capital, a mutual-fund company which manages $57 billion-worth of assets for some 2m individual investors. Richard Fisher, Morgan Stanley's chairman, cited the ability to distribute his firm's products to those investors as a ...