WEEK IN REVIEW

Mutual funds? Horrors! says UAM

Back on the block is Pilgrim Baxter & Associates Ltd., the United Asset Management Corp. unit that’s managed to drop a third of its assets along the way somewhere. It runs 14 PBHG no-load funds from Oaks, Pa., and wants to concentrate on money management, now that it’s down to $12 billion in fund assets, and to find somebody to help it market what it has to offer.

Officials of the Boston-based amalgamator say “investing in a major expansion of retail mutual fund distribution is not part of the company’s strategy.”

Drool, Britannia

A lot of action in Old Blighty: Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Britain should get itself ready for joining the European Monetary Union and replacing the pound with the euro. Nothing certain, of course.

British investors took their time digesting this, and two days later sent Footsie — the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 index — to record levels, although as one money manager sniffed, “nobody’s selling and hardly anybody’s buying. Volumes are very low.”

Still, the market was up 133 points. Then the Poms took a peek at Wall Street’s midweek slide, decided things weren’t so good after all, and took some profits.

Meanwhile, Marks & Spencer, the country’s largest retailer, started firing a quarter of its lord high pooh-bahs. Why we should care is that among those taking early retirement is Chris Littmoden, who runs the Marks-and-Sparks U.S. businesses. They include Kings Super Markets and Brooks Brothers, the 181-year-old purveyor of white button-down shirts and blue pinstripe suits. It’s been moving ever more downmarket since the Brits bought it a decade ago and now the chatter on Threadneedle Street is that it’s on the block. What this means for dowdy stockbrokers and lawyers remains to be seen, but don’t toss your father’s repp ties.

.com man

The Street.com, the online financial news service co-founded by the ubiquitously hyperactive hedge fund manager-columnist-TV personality James J. Cramer, has decided to squeeze into the initial public offering skyrocket. Officials hope to raise as much as $75 million, hopes that were only slightly dampened by reports that Mr. Cramer’s hedge fund last year had only a 2% gain.

Also in the .com mode, Amazon.com, as you’ve noticed, has bought 40% of Drugstore.com. Will the next acquisition be Sodafountain.com? That could bring back the good old days with Harold Teen reading virtual paperbacks and eating virtual sundaes at the Cyberspace Pharmacy.

Buy the piper, call the tune

Piper Jaffray, bought last Mayday by U.S. Bancorp, changes its name today to U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. The 104-year-old Minneapolis brokerage has 104 branches in 17 states.

More web woes

Charles Schwab Corp. found the wonderful web world less than smooth sailing on Wednesday, when it started the trading day with an unidentified mainframe problem that kept it offline until 11 a.m. Eastern time. It let investors walk in or call its brokers at the $29.95-a-trade web rate while it was lost in cyberspace.

Worse off are 13 people charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with securities fraud involving payment for touting micro-cap stocks on the Internet and scalping them, or selling out once the price runs up, too.

It suits ’em to a T-shirt

Steven Schwartz’s and Peter Peterson’s Blackstone Group has lured M&A maven Robert Friedman from New York law firm Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett after 32 years there. He had advised them since the firm started in the 1980s. To show they’re not just flying by the seat of their pants, the buyout duo also hired Richard Lappin, former president of Fruit of the Loom, as a senior managing director.