ARGENT TO SPIN OFF FINANCIAL SERVICES

Argent Capital Corp. of Brentwood, Tenn., will spin off its financial services division and rename it e-WealthUSA.

It will begin offering online financial services beginning next year including wealth and estate planning, debt management, trust and mortgages, tax advice and audit assistance as well as financial hotlines and e-financial news.

The plan is to add insurance and annuities to the product line. So far, contracts have been signed with 30 marketing organizations.

H&Q picks Ameritrade

as IPO partner

Hambrecht & Quist will soon start offering the customers of discount broker Ameritrade Holding Corp. access to initial public offerings.

Omaha, Neb.-based Ameritrade is among a short but growing list of online brokerages that the San Francisco investment bank has hooked up with.

Hambrecht & Quist initially started offering these services with Charles Schwab & Co. in 1997 and expects to selectively add to its online brokerage alliances in the future. Most recently, H&Q, which is being acquired by Chase Manhattan Corp., has raised more than $12 billion in financing for start-up companies.

DLJdirect offers

401(k) feature

DLJdirect, the Jersey City, N.J., online brokerage unit of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette, has formed a joint venture with 401(K) Co., a retirement plan administrator based in Austin, Texas. DLJ will offer the retirement plan participants of 401(K) Co.’s clients the opportunity to trade securities and 7,500 mutual funds.

Franklin to sue bank

it wants to sell out

Franklin Mutual Advisers of Short Hills, N.J., manager of the Mutual Series Funds, filed a lawsuit in Nebraska federal court against Commercial Federal Corp. of Omaha. Franklin charges the board of directors of the $12.8 billion asset bank with unlawfully attempting to prevent Franklin from nominating two independent directors to the four-member board.

Franklin, Commercial Federal’s largest shareholder with a 7.9% ownership stake, hopes to rally enough support to force a sale of the company.

Paging investors:

Schwab goes wireless

Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco is offering its customers a new paging and cell phone e-mail service dubbed SchwabAlerts.

Customers who subscribe to the service on the Web can receive current investment information, price quotes or earnings alerts and news via wireless communication channels.

In March, the company introduced the SchwabAlerts e-mail service, which speeds messages to customers’ personal computers.

E*trade offers $1M

for predicting Dow

A cool $1 million is the grand prize in E*trade Group Inc.’s “‘eMillion Mania” contest. The winner will have to correctly guess the closing price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Dec. 31.

Entrants will also have a chance at winning one of six Oldsmobile Intrigue GL sedans.

Contestants can enter only once between now and the Nov. 28 deadline at the specially crafted website: www.emillionmania.com. But hurry! E*trade will only consider the first 10 million entries. Winners will be announced in January.

Michigan National

targets affluent

Michigan National Corp. in Farmington Hills has opened a new financial planning division for the rich. The unit, Premium Financial Services, will offer customized advice as well as investment and insurance products, loans, and deposit products.

It will also offer the company’s new Asset Management Account, which combines a checking account with sweep capability that moves idle cash into a choice of money market funds.

Legg Mason buying

British fund manager

Legg Mason of Baltimore, Md., agreed to purchase London-based Johnson Fry Holdings PLC, a retail mutual fund company with about $2 billion under management, for an estimated $70 million.

Legg Mason has $95 billion under management, including $21 billion in its proprietary mutual funds. The move will expand the brokerage’s money management efforts outside the United States. Johnson Fry provides the U.K. equivalent of open-end and closed-end mutual funds and retirement plan accounts for 83,000 customers.

Harris calls meeting

on Dun & Bradstreet

Harris Associates is trying to encourage shareholders of Dun & Bradstreet to convene for a Nov. 9 “town hall meeting” in New York City to explore possible actions to “maximize shareholder value.”

The Chicago-based money manager, which holds a 12.6% stake in D&B, has been unsuccessful in previous attempts to convince the Murray Hill, N.J., provider of credit and marketing information to call a meeting on its own.

Four join REDIBook

to trade after-hours

Four securities firms have joined a consortium to offer after-hours trading on REDIBook, an electronic communications network.

Paine Webber Group Inc. will roll out after-hours trading to its U.S. clients within the first quarter of next year. Also new on the roster are Credit Suisse Group of Zurich, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. of New York and National Discount Brokers of Jersey City, N.J. Current REDIBook partners and investors include Charles Schwab Corp., Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc., Fidelity Investments, Spear Leeds & Kellogg and TD Waterhouse Group.

Bermuda exchange

trading hedge funds

The Bermuda Stock Exchange of Hamilton and HedgeWorld Limited, a Bermuda-based provider of online services to the hedge fund industry, have formed a strategic partnership to create the first regulated exchange for hedge funds based outside the United States.

HedgeTrust Exchange will match buyers with sellers of offshore hedge funds over the Bermuda Stock Exchange. It will open in January. Non-U.S. hedge fund trades will be made available through Tremont Securities, a registered broker/dealer with offices in Rye, N.Y.

Rocky Mountain tuition plan for college savers

Colorado introduced Scholars Choice, a college savings program for which Salomon Smith Barney and SSB Citi Asset Management Group will manage the assets. The second of its kind offered in Colorado, this one was designed by Colorado’s State Treasurer and prompted by recent passage of favorable state legislation.

Scholars Choice joins the Prepaid Tuition Fund, Colorado’s other college tuition savings plan, which first appeared in 1997. The Colorado Student Obligation Bond Authority administers both plans under the CollegeInvest moniker.

Small Dallas broker

to offer online trading

Rushmore Financial Group in Dallas has launched RushTrade.com., an online trading unit.

Rushmore acquired Block Trading Inc. earlier in the week. RushTrade.com will cater to the sophisticated, active trader and offer low transaction costs.

Putnam survey says:

Investors like advisers

A telephone survey of 502 investors for Putnam Investments of Boston found that almost 75% rely on financial advisers to help them with long-term financial goals. Ninety-two percent don’t use the Internet to invest money, but often use the Internet to track their investments.

Vanguard says beware autumn-purchase tax hit

Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa., is addressing the tax consequences of mutual fund purchases during the last months of the year.

In its quarterly newsletter, In The Vanguard, mailed to its 14 million shareholders, the nation’s second-biggest mjtual fund company suggests investors check a fund’s expected capital gains distribution and its record and pay dates before making large purchases to stock or

balanced funds. Otherwise investors face a surprise if their fund is ready to distribute a sizeable year-end distribution.

Morgan Stanley

kicks off ichoice

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. of New York has launched ichoice, a previously announced program that unites the products and services of Dean Witter’s securities business, Morgan Stanley’s private client group and the technology of the company’s online brokerage, Discover Brokerage Direct.