WEEK IN REVIEW

IAI says no marketers need apply

Investment Advisors Inc., which runs the 15 IAI funds from Minneapolis, is shedding execs almost as fast as it’s shedding assets. The latter have fallen 53% in the 18 months ended June 30, to $8 billion from $17 billion. The latest honcho to leave: CEO Kip Knelman, out with the other no-see-ums after only three months on the job.

His departure raises the number of vanished managers to more than a dozen, including Suzanne Zak, who left to start her own firm. Among the seven IAIers she took along were Doug and Peter Platt, son and grandson of Stanley Platt, the company’s founder.

Only one of IAI’s 10 stock funds, IAI Value, is keeping pace with peers.

Roy Gillson, promoted to CEO from chief investment officer, agrees that people think the company is focused on marketing rather than the market (he’s the first non-marketer in a quarter-century to hold the job), but says he’s going to change things. Parent Lloyds TSB Group PLC hopes so, as do the remaining investors.

Some operator

Fidelity Investments reached out and touched an AT&T Corp. marketing exec to be a senior operating officer of its retail marketing and brokerage arm. She is Gail McGovern, 48, who spent 24 years with the phone company, starting back when it was the phone company. She’ll report to vice chairman Gary Burkhead when she starts Sept. 15, principally running telemarketing, telephone customer service and the 77 investor centers. She must have a voice with a smile: She ran AT&T’s $23 billion consumer business.

Tome poison?

A new chance to put your clients in another Internet venture with no earnings is about to crop up. Barnes & Noble Inc., the country’s biggest bookstore chain, is about to spin off its barnesandnoble.com virtual bookstore in an IPO scheduled for next month.

And why not? If Amazon.com stock can quadruple — as it has this year — without the company showing a profit, why can’t barnesandnoble.com do the same? Of course, Amazon’s revenue of $148 million is more than 10 times barnesandnoble’s, but, hey, they expect profits in 2000.

The big one

The Federal Reserve Board cleared the way for the $57.7 billion merger of No. 5 BankAmerica Corp. and No. 3 NationsBank Corp. into the nation’s biggest bank holding company, with $580 billion in assets. That’s 8.5% of all deposits nationwide. As many as 8,000 jobs, almost 5% of the combined work forces, are expected to find a resting place in Abraham’s bosom once the banks’ boards approve the deal next month. The combine will be based in Charlotte, N.C., and called BankAmerica. You’d think they could afford to buy maybe even a little space between the words.

Neuberger rare

Neuberger & Berman LLC’s 62 principals voted to sell about 15% of the firm this fall, giving every employee a piece of the action, too. The initial public offering is expected to raise up to $250 million for the New York money manager and brokerage. That would value the company at more that $2.2 billion.

The principals would keep about 85%. The 59-year-old firm manages $59 billion, mostly stocks, for pension and mutual funds.

Call ’em T-stocks

The $10.9 million Bull and Bear U.S. Government Securities Fund wants its shareholders to allow it to hold up to 35% in stock. Investors like George Karpus, of Karpus Investment Management in Pittsford, N.Y., think it’s a bad idea, sort of a pig in a poke fund, and are trying to block the change. . .Pittsburgh’s Mellon Bank Corp. is going to offer mutual funds in Singapore through an alliance there with United Overseas Bank Ltd. . .Denying magazine reports, Bank Austria AG, Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya SA and Finnish- and Swedish-owned MeritaNordbanken Oyj said they have no plans to merge. What language would they speak? Oyj indeed.

closing Quote

“She is probably madder than a wet hen.”

— Tax lawyer Burt Whitehead, speaking of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Page 1

Bloomberg News contributed to this report