The king is dead. Long live the king.
Emerging markets-manager King Street Advisors Ltd., a unit of State Street Global Advisors, has changed its name to Rexiter Capital Management Ltd.
Why the change after only two years in business?
While the London-based money manager, which has $430 million in assets under management, had secured rights to its name around the world, State Street lawyers overlooked a New York-based hedge fund manager that uses the identical name.
The latter protested, and while the London manager's U.K. lawyers were prepared to fight, State Street's U.S. attorneys caved in, said Ken King, managing director. An official at New York-based King Street, which is affiliated with Kingstreet Capital, declined to comment.
To emphasize that there are no internal changes, the firm retained its logo of a crown and adopted a Latin translation of its old name --"Rex" meaning king, and "iter" being street. That's not a proper translation, though: a truer translation would have been something like "Via Reggia," but that "sounds like a Trinidad band," Mr. King said.