WEEK IN REVIEW: FOR ADVICE, IT’S YES, YES, NANNETTE

Nannette Nocon, 35, bested a field of 1,200 to be named top personal financial adviser by Dalbar Inc. Spokesmen for the Boston research company say its Excellence & Trust award program is the nation’s first to rate advisers. A native of the Philippines, Ms. Nocon works in the Rochester, N.Y., office of American Express Financial Advisors Inc. Her 500-plus clients are described as mostly women and pre-retirees (isn’t almost everybody?) and all of them rated her excellent in providing advice. She’s a Cornell graduate in nutrition who failed her adviser aptitude test 13 years ago and had to talk her way into the job.

Trouble in

paradise

Three big bucks brokers – they managed $1.5 billion by their own account -have bolted the Los Angeles office of Goldman Sachs & Co. to form Bel Air Investment Advisors LLC. Clients they hope to bring along include producer Jon Peters, oil billionaire Marvin Davis, former Chrysler honcho Lee Iacocca and mouth Geraldo Rivera. The Bel Air bunch is headed by Todd Morgan, with Reed Halliday and William Feiler, all from Goldman, and Mr. Morgan’s brother Thomas, a former Goldmanite most recently at Lazard Frères. A Goldman spokesman notes that the defection leaves it with more than 360 brokers in its Private Client Services unit who manage more than $125 billion.

Eye-opener

The Securities and Exchange Commission made it easier to keep an eye on potential takeover bids or proxy fights: Passive investors will no longer have to file the complicated Schedule 13d on buying more than 5% of any company’s stock. “If you see a 13d being filed, you’ll know it’s someone serious,” an observer notes.

Push comes to shove

The New York Stock Exchange is closed today for the first time in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., thanks to the efforts of a Wall Street neighbor, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Mr. Jackson’s Rainbow/Push Coalition, which he says owns stock in 50 companies, has an office down the street where Mr. Jackson keeps an eye on the capitalists.

He broke brea
d with many of them, including Big Board chairman Richard Grasso and Travelers Group chairman Sanford Weill, at three days of workshops to raise awareness – and money – for his Project Wall Street. No word on how many jobs for African-Americans the effort has opened up.

The Prince

known as #*&@!

Two more execs joined the flight from LGT Asset Management’s U.S. unit, Chancellor LGT. That makes 15, among them CEO Warren Shaw, who have fled since the Liechtenstein ruling family’s trust bought Chancellor for $300 million not too long ago. It’s been a disaster for Prince Philipp, 51, who runs parent Liechtenstein Global Trust AG for his brother, ruling Prince Hans-Adam, and a passel of relatives in the art-rich principality tucked between Switzerland and Austria. Since October, Goldman Sachs has been shopping LGT Asset Management with the $60 billion it runs with no takers. Even with all the woes, it’s expected to fetch a cool billion. Quick: What’s that in Swiss francs?

The junkman cometh

Bank of New York is buying Mendham Capital Group, a privately held junk bond specialist in Roseland, N.J. All its 30 employees will slip into the BNY Capital Markets unit.

Logon, enter

Cyberbroker Datek Online is paying $1.5 million to be this year’s sole sponsor of TheStreet.com’s market ticker.

Gobble, gobble

Fifth Third Bancorp, the numerically challenged Cincinnati holding company, continued its quest to be No. 3 in Ohio by agreeing to buy CitFed Bancorp of Dayton for $688 million in stock. Just the week before, it struck a deal to pay $917 million for State Savings Co. of Columbus.

Teachers’

non-pet

The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association part of TIAA-CREF filed a resolution to force the Walt Disney Co. board to come out from under the fie-fi-foe-thumb of Mouse management. The pension fund giant has some clout: It owns 6.9 million shares of Disney, worth $700 million, none of which, presumably would be voted for Sleepy, Dopey or even Snow White.

Closer and closer…

The Federal Reserve Board
approved Fleet Financial Group Inc.’s $1.6 billion deal for No. 3 discount broker Quick & Reilly.

Is turnabout fair play?

Cadaret Grant & Co. Inc. of Syracuse, N.Y., bought the brokerage of American Insurance Group, bucking the stubborn trend of insurance companies buying independent broker-dealers. The 350 reps will continue to sell the New York-based insurance giant’s life policies and variable annuities, but will push more securities under the deal, which closed early this month.

The unit will become a separate division called American Services and headed by managing director Bruce Stefany. He was president of Chubb Securities, the Concord, N.H.-based brokerage unit of the Chubb Group.

The sales force is scattered throughout 20-some branches, mainly in California, Texas, the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. With the additions, Cadaret Grant has 1,200 reps.

Let’s make a deal

Orange County’s former bond counsel, the New York law firm of LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae, has offered a bunch of California local governments $50 million if they’ll drop a malpractice suit. You recall that the county declared bankruptcy three years ago after its treasurer lost $1.7 billion in bad bets on interest rates. It would be the biggest malpractice settlement on record as well as the first money the county would see from a third party in the bond fiasco.

Morgan’s

century, again?

J.P. Morgan & Co. completed its $900 million purchase of 45% of American Century Cos. Inc. of Kansas City, Mo.

Parlez-vous

electricite?

Barr Devlin Associates, the New York investment bank that specializes in power company mergers, was sold to Societe Generale for an undisclosed sum. All the live wires will keep their jobs.

A Legg up

Large-cap value manager Brandywine Asset Management Inc., recently snatched up by Legg Mason Inc., pushes the Baltimore-based holding company’s assets under management to $61 billion. It’s the ninth – count ’em: ninth – asset management unit. The other eight added $183.4 million, or 29%, to the co
mpany’s $640 million income for the fiscal year ended March 31, according to InvestmentNews sister publication Pensions & Investments. Expect more Legg, analysts say, as the company tries to pull a Topsy via further acquisitions, good old-fashioned internal growth and the outright buying of managers with different styles.

Interra interred

n Brokerages Dain Bosworth of Minneapolis and Rauscher Pierce Refsnes of Dallas completed their merger and now are dubbed Dain Rauscher Inc. As part of the deal, Interra Financial, publicly held parent of the two broker-dealers, changed its name to Dain Rauscher Corp. Whatever the name, the combined brokerage becomes the nation’s 10th largest full-service securities firm. It has offices in 26 states, mainly west of the Mississippi, with more than 1,200 salespeople and combined 1997 net revenues of nearly $700 million.

Coast-to-coast

Turner Investment Partners Inc., an employee-owned manager of $2.3 billion in Berwyn, Pa., completed its first acquisition: Solon Asset Management LP, manager of $350 million in Walnut Creek, Calif. Its three employees are expected to remain with the firm.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report

Everybody wants to get into the act

Investment advising must be a good business, so good, in fact, that none other than Standard & Poor’s is getting into it. Yup, the information provider to the pros is going retail, on the cheap. It went on line last Monday with something called S&P Personal Wealth at www.personalwealth.com. It’s being produced under registered investment adviser status, which lets its employees make stock and mutual fund picks and give personal investment advice to cyberclients.

The cost? After a free 30-day trial period, $9.95 a month. Customers also get news, market info and company dope from S&P’s team of research rats.