WEEK IN REVIEW

Deutsche Bank is in the market

Deutsche Bank AG, burned by the defection of three of its top investment bankers to Credit Suisse First Boston, is scouring the woods to buy an American investment bank, and may do so by the end of this week.

Michael Philipp, the downsizing bank’s worldwide equities head, told employees in a conference call: “The franchise has to be replaced. If we don’t do anything, we’re sitting here dead in the water.”

An acquisition isn’t the only option, Mr. Philipp said, but Lehman Brothers Inc., PaineWebber Inc. and Hambrecht & Quist Group are seen as possibilities. “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean they love you back,” Mr. Philipp said. That’s the voice of experience.

Lesson learned

Speaking of Hambrecht & Quist, Charles Schwab Corp. is shaking off the slap on the wrist it got a couple of months ago for using other firms’ stock research on a demonstration version of its Internet site. Now it’s negotiating with Credit Suisse Group and, yup, H&Q about using their stock dope online for its Analyst Center.

Vacation time

The 11th-biggest mutual fund company, the $110 billion-asset Dreyfus Corp., told Michael Schoenberg, 47, to take the rest of the year off, with pay. The former lead manager of its $200 million Premier Aggressive Growth Fund and its $53 million Aggressive Growth Fund is the target of federal and New York state investigations into whether he broke the law by holding stock in both his own account and in the funds he managed. Mr. Schoenberg was unavailable for comment, said Dreyfus, adding that everything is on the up and up. Both funds have been steady losers since Mr. Schoenberg took over in 1995, and both he and Dreyfus, a subsidiary of Pittsburgh’s Mellon Bank Corp., are being sued by investors.

Great minds dept.

Morningstar Inc. and Lipper Analytical Services separately came to the conclusion that they may need to raise the market capitalization limit for small-cap mutual funds from less than a billion to $1.5 billion or $2 billion.

Haggis, anyone?

Blairlogie Capital Management, an international unit of Pimco Advisors Holdings LP, is on the block. Apparently there’s some sort of cultural difference between Edinburgh, Scotland, where Blairlogie hangs its kilt, and Newport Beach, Calif., where $223 billion-asset Pimco keeps its surfboard and T-shirt. Maybe the Scots feel overshadowed by Pimco’s bigger units, Pacific Investment Management Co. and Oppenheimer Capital.

Netherlands, 1; Brazil, nil

While all of Brazil was busy watching their national side beat the Netherlands on the World Cup soccer field, sorry, that’s football pitch, those deucedly clever Dutch were carrying off coffeeland’s fourth-biggest bank. ABN Amro Holding NV is digging up 2.1 billion beans in cash to buy control of Banco Real SA, its $15 billion in assets and its 10 related businesses, including a money manager.

It makes perfect

The Securities Industry Association is forming a committee to develop “best practices” on the relationships between the brokers who sell securities and the ones who keep the records and the certificates (Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. asked them to do so).

The panel will be headed by Richard S. Pechter of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc.

Electrifying news

General Electric Co. became the first American company to top $300 billion in market capitalization and is just as proud as, well, its NBC peacock…Stockholders of Boston money manager Eaton Vance Corp. approved a 2-for-1 split effective Aug. 31.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report

closing Quote

“This is an industry that’s very good at figuring out how to make money,” — notes Securities Industry Association president Marc Lackritz, on the profit potential of running IRA-like Social Security accounts. Page 1