WEEK IN REVIEW

UAM price is right for Michael Price as he nearly doubles stake to 10.3%

Is United Asset Management — leaking assets like the Exxon Valdez leaked Exxon (InvestmentNews, Feb. 2) — next on Michael Price’s hit list? His Franklin Mutual Advisors Inc. now owns 10.3% of UAM. That’s 7.11 million shares, trading at 23 and change. Franklin owned 5.76% five months ago.

Boston-based UAM is one of the few publicly traded fund managers in the dumps this year, down from a 52-week high of 30 1/4 after reporting a fourth-quarter loss of $121.5 million.

“This is the one we’re most enthusiastic about,” says Larry Sondike, a portfolio manager at Franklin in Short Hills, N.J.

UAM manages almost $200 billion and is trading at only about 1% of that, making it the sort of situation that Mr. Price likes: an underachiever with lots of potential. He also owns more than 5% of troubled Oxford Health Plans Inc. and helped make mucho dinero for Chase Manhattan stockholders, for example, by prodding the bank to do something to raise earnings until it merged with Chemical Banking Corp.

Yacktman Asset Management of Chicago is hanging on to its almost 4% stake in UAM and “probably increasing” it, says vice president Gregory Jackson.

“We’re delighted,” beams UAM spokesman Jonathan Hubbard of Franklin’s move. He adds that UAM insiders own 45% of the firm’s stock.

Other big holders of UAM have been moving, too. Tiger Management increased its stake from 8.8 to 9.1 million shares at yearend, according to an SEC filing, and Fidelity Investments dropped 700,000 shares to 3.7 million.

News is news

Dow Jones, pushed and shoved by the aforementioned Mr. Price, has just about given up on its beaten-down real-time information service business, writing off $850 million — or all the profits it had made in more than a decade on the division, formerly known as Telerate. Expected next: a sale of the business, now known as Dow Jones Markets — possibly for its $550 million book value.

Also getting out o
f the stock news business is the Tribune Co., the Chicago publisher and TV-station operator that seven years ago paid the late junkman Robert Maxwell a couple of million dollars to take the New York Daily News off its hands. This time it’s apparently getting some revenue from the transaction: Its Tribune Media Services unit has agreed to sell TMS Stocks, a financial listings service for newspapers, to the Associated Press. Terms were not disclosed.

Everybody’s favorite biz-info rival Reuters isn’t doing all that well either. Reuters Holdings PLC reported 1997 revenue down 1%, pre-tax profit down 3%, operating margin down 1.5 percentage points to 20.5%, and earnings per share down 12%, although American depositary shares are down only 4%. Still, the announcement brightly boasts of “continued advances (before currency effects) in underlying revenue and profit.”

By the way, the company’s CEO, Peter Job, says he knows of no wrongdoing by any of his employees in the federal investigation of whether somebody at Reuters stole private info from Bloomberg LP.

Meanwhile, however, it has come to our attention that Bloomberg News’ man in Frankfurt is doing a crackerjack job of covering Germany’s financial capital. His name? Wolfgang Reuter.

Kemper’s Timbers at Northern Trust

Chicago’s Northern Trust Corp. has named Stephen B. Timbers, 53, to the new job of president of its global investments unit. He comes from Zurich Kemper Investments Inc., where he was CEO and top investment officer. Northern is ranked as the nation’s fifth-largest bank money manager by sister publication Pensions and Investments, with $197 billion under management.

Bet hedged

Manager of managers Value Asset Management Inc. of Westport, Conn., is paying more than $100 million for up to 70% of Chicago fund-of-funds specialist Grosvenor Capital Management LP. Value, a closely held firm founded in 1995 with Bank of Boston money, recently bought hunks of two other money managers, Harris Bretall Sullivan & Smith Inc. of San Franciso an
d Dalton Grenier Hartman Maher & Co. of New York.

Value CEO David Minella said he likes Grosvenor and its $3 billion under management because of its hedge fund expertise and pats his firm on the back for being “the first investment management holding company to obtain a significant position in the hedge fund business.” Grosvenor’s partners are promised investment and management autonomy and a slice of the pie.

Safeco transfer

In Seattle, Safeco Corp. appointed Randall H. Talbot president of Safeco Life Insurance Co. He succeeds Richard E. Zunker, who will serve as vice chairman until August, when he turns 60. Mr. Talbot had led Talbot Financial Corp., a Safeco subsidiary in Albuquerque, N.M. His replacement is David E. Weymouth, who has headed Talbot Financial Services since 1996.

Appetite unabated

Dain Rauscher Corp., which is still getting used to its new name (until last month it was Interra Financial), shelled out $150 million — all but $30 million in cash — for crosstown Minneapolis rival Wessels Arnold & Henderson LLC. The deal, set to close March 31, is designed to boost Dain’s investment banking efforts and adds Wessels’ office in Palo Alto, Calif. Wessels is strong in technology, while the buyer, a recent amalgam of Dain Bosworth and Rauscher Pierce Refsnes of Dallas, is bigger in energy and financial services. Kenneth J. Wessels, 55, will head the company’s equity capital markets group.

Faster, higher

Investors continued hammering down the doors of stock funds in the month’s first week, forcing them to accept $9.02 billion. In fact, the week’s total almost matched January’s $11.5 billion invested, Trim Tabs Financial Services reports. The biggest single hunk, $3.78 billion, went into growth funds. On the other hand, Treasury bond funds lost a net $370 million.

Light at the end of the tunnel

Hanoi announced plans to set up a trial Vietnamese stock exchange this fall. Foreign brokers would be allowed in as long as they are partners of local companies.

Top dollar

A seat o
n the New York Stock Exchange sold for a record-tying $1.75 million, and a seat on the American Stock Exchange sold for a record $460,000. The previous Amex record was $420,000, set on Blue Monday last October. Early on Blue Monday, presumably.

Sobering thought

Most Americans pick their investment poison based on tips from family and friends rather than heeding professional advice, a national survey shows. The 1,000 people polled have at least $5,000 invested, with an average of $26,000 to $28,000 each. Three-quarters of them are saving for retirement.

“It’s the small investor seeking assurance from those he knows best and trusts most,” says Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, which produced the telephone poll for NBR/Bridge.

The small investor apparently believes ads, though: Almost

half expect steady returns of 15%

to 20%.

closing Quote

“If we do nothing we will all be alternative minimum tax taxpayers at some point.” — a Republican Capitol Hill aide Page 1

Plug pulled on ITT

Banished from the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index is ITT, which merges Saturday with Starwood Hotels and Resorts. Starwood is on the S&P REIT index. Taking ITT’s place is Mercantile Bancorp., moving up from the MidCap 400. Camco International will hop up from the SmallCap 600, and PMT Services will make the small time as Camco’s sub.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report