Berger Funds' Move to Janus Gets Berger Trustee Support

December 12, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Trustees of the $6-billion Berger Funds have a backed a plan to merge Berger into the Janus funds.

Berger shareholders still need to approve the proposal, which would move the Berger Funds to Janus through a series of reorganizations and transfers of advisory responsibility, according to a news media announcement from Berger.

According to the announcement, Janus will begin managing some Berger growth funds on December 16 and will take on other management responsibilities over the next few months.

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Shareholders will be asked to approve the deal as part of a January 2003 proxy solicitation with a shareholder meeting now scheduled for March, the Berger announcement said.

Sub-advised funds will continue to be managed by their current portfolio managers, Perkins, Wolf, McDonnell & Co. and Bay Isle Financial LLC, under Janus supervision.

The Berger trustees said they decided to back the move to Janus based on factors such as:

  • cost
  • shareholder servicing capabilities
  • compatibility of investment style
  • the number of investment options to be made available to Berger shareholders.

The agreement with Janus was driven by an announcement that Stilwell Financial Inc., the parent company of Berger Financial Group LLC, the Funds’ adviser, that it intended to discontinue Berger Financial Group as a separate advisory organization.

FTSE Announces Quarterly Housekeeping Changes

December 11, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - With its quarterly housecleaning now finished, the FTSE Group announced changes to several of its indices including the blue-chip FTSE 100.

The global index company said that FTSE 100 deletions would include:

  • Corus Group
  • Brambles Industries
  • Cable & Wireless.

The three will be replaced by:

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  • Liberty International
  • British Airways
  • Whitbread.

FTSE also announced changes to its mid-cap FTSE 250 index. Added were:

  • Lastminute.com
  • Wembley
  • Informa Group
  • Autonomy.

Dropped from the FTSE 250 index will be:

  • MyTravel Group
  • Fitness First
  • Amey
  • Cordiant Communications.

Also, FTSE has set the market capitalization threshold for entry into the FTSE SmallCap index at $27.39 million.   Deletions from the FTSE SmallCap index and therefore the FTSE All-Share index include Baltimore Technologies, Trafficmaster, and Medisys.  

Changes to the FTSE UK Index Series will be applied to the indexes at the close of business on Friday December 20, 2002, FTSE said.

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