World View

US managed funds giant Janus Capital Corporation is joining fellow countrymen Morgan Stan-ley by venturing into the Japanese market.

US managed funds giant Janus Capital Corporation is joining fellow countrymen Morgan Stan-ley by venturing into the Japanese market.

According to the Bloomberg wire service, Janus has set up a marketing alliance with Nomura Securities Company, Japan's largest brokerage house, to market the funds through its brokers.

The venture will kick off with Nomura getting exclusive rights to sell the Janus Global Technol-ogy Fund which closed to US investors last month after taking in $US8 billion in its first year and soared 211.55 per cent last year.

The move into Japan is part of a wider global strategy in which Janus hopes to gather $US25 bil-lion in the next five years from international customers. It currently manages about $US270 bil-lion, mostly from US investors.

The trend towards rationalising funds within individual managers continues unabated with the news that US-based Scudder Kemper Investments is to merge or close nearly 40 per cent of its directly sold managed funds in a bid to cut costs and provide a simpler range of choices.

The group will combine 23 funds resulting in a revised line-up of 43 funds. It will affect about $35 billion of shareholder money in Scudder and AARP Funds, but won't impact on the firm's Kemper funds, which are sold through financial advisers, brokers and other intermediaries.

The group says the consolidations will result in lower fund expense ratios, saving shareholders an estimated $US10 million a year. Neither investment staff nor administrative support will be cut as part of the changes.

Switzerland-based UBS AG is to restructure its global business is reorganising into three distinct units, while placing its slumping flagship private banking unit under new leadership.

The new units, to be called UBS Switzerland, UBS Asset Management and UBS Warburg, are aimed at giving the bank greater agility in responding to the new demands of the changing finan-cial services industry.

Georges Gagnebin will become chief executive of private banking, where growth has slowed and profits have fallen. He replaces Rudi Bogni, who will leave "as a consequence of the reorganisa-tional changes," according to the Dow Jones news wire service. Gagnebin will join UBS's ex-ecutive board.

UBS has the world's biggest private banking operations but has seen the unit struggle. In the third quarter, profit fell to $635 million Swiss francs ($US391.2 million) from 1.1 billion francs a year earlier.

Corporate monolith General Electric is to sell its own mutual funds directly to consumers online, according to the Web site Financial Planning Interactive.

The move marks a radical departure from its core business of producing electrical and mechani-cal goods. The 17 funds available will be offered through a new web site, GE Financial Network, with the first four funds available from May 1 and will include a S&P 500 index fund, an inter-national fund and a domestic US fund.

GE also plans to offer a wide array of products including annuities, term life insurance, credit cards and savings accounts.