Oppenheimer Buys Firm And Adds Fixed-Income Team

OppenheimerFunds Inc. has acquired a separate-account manager in Houston and added a portfolio team to manage investment-grade fixed-income securities.

The firm bought substantially all the assets of Gulf Investment Mangement, a separate-account manager known for its expertise in large-cap equities. Gulf Investments had more than $2.6 billion in assets under management, with separate accounts representing three-quarters of that total. Gulf and its staff will remain based in Houston and operate as a division of Oppenheimer‚s institutional money-management subsidiary, OAM Institutional.

The fixed-income team members–all formerly of the Miller, Anderson, Sherrerd division of Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM)–include Angelo G. Manioudakis, who joins Oppenheimer as senior vice president and leader of the Domestic Investment Grade Team; Benjamin J. Gord, who will direct quantitative research and analysis efforts for the team; and portfolio manager Charles Moon. They will be based at the firm‚s New York office.

Along with current members of OppenheimerFunds‚ Fixed Income group, the three will manage Oppenheimer‚s Limited-Term Government Fund, U.S. Government Trust, Bond Fund and Capital Preservation Fund, as well as its variable account funds with similar investment policies and some domestic investment-grade fixed-income portfolios.

In addition to retail funds, the team will manage and work to

expand the investment-grade fixed-income assets of OAM Institutional.

For more information, visit www.oppenheimerfunds.com or call (888) 470-0862.

EAInvest Introduces Program

EAInvest Securities Inc., a broker-dealer based in San Francisco exclusively for independent financial advisors, has introduced its Hassle-Free Service program.

The program simplifies the account-opening process, assigns a service representative to each advisor to help him or her build a practice, doesn‚t compete against the advisor on the retail side, offers Advent Software‚s Advent Office Essentials at a reduced price and creates personalized training programs, including some on managed accounts, for advisors. For more information on EAInvest, visit www.eainvest.com.

Efficient Portfolios Launches Service

Efficient Portfolios LLC of Falls Church, Va., has launched an online service for financial advisors that provides them with advanced investment analysis tools that focus on risk and return. The tools help advisors determine clients‚ risk tolerance, identify stocks and mutual funds that have performed best in various asset classes, optimize portfolios for the highest return at acceptable levels of risk, test portfolio changes, perform Monte Carlo simulation and select funds that have performed better than other investments. For more information, visit www.effport.com

Dalbar Recognizes SAFECO

SAFECO Life Insurance Co., based in Redmond, Wash., received top-10 rankings in four of seven categories in Dalbar‚s 2001 Financial Professional Survey, which evaluated mid-size variable-annuity firms. SAFECO was ranked No. 1 for inside wholesaler support. It ranked fourth in sales literature/marketing, sixth in operations support and eighth in in-person wholesaler report. More than 25 firms were evaluated in each category. For more information, visit www.safeco.com.

Victory Fund Gets Award

The Victory National Municipal Bond Fund, Class A Shares, has won the 2001 Lipper Performance Achievement Award. According to Lipper, the fund achieved the highest total return among a peer group of 92 intermediate municipal-debt funds for the five-year period ended December 31. For the one-, three- and five-year periods ended December 31, the Class A Shares returned 5.46%, 5.33% and 6.2%, respectively. For more information, visit www.victoryfunds.com or phone (800) 539-FUND.

Nuveen Announces IPOs

Nuveen Investments has announced the IPOs of eight municipal closed-end exchange-traded funds. The successful launches could raise a total of approximately $1.05 billion. In addition, the funds expect to issue MuniPreferred shares, which could bring the combined assets of the eight funds to more than $1.5 billion. Of the eight funds offered–one national fund and one each for the states of Arizona, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania–the national, California and New York funds feature the added characteristic of having a portfolio that is at least 80% insured. Each fund is traded on the American Stock Exchange. For more information, visit www.nuveen.com/etf.