American Century Investments will acquire the retail mutual fund assets of Kopp Investment Advisors, said American Century spokeswoman Laura Kouri. Terms were not disclosed.
The small-cap Kopp Emerging Growth Fund's $288 million in assets will be added to the $119 million small-cap American Century New Opportunities II fund, and the large-cap Kopp Total Quality Management Fund's $26 million will be added to the $3 billion quantitative American Century Equity Growth Fund.
The asset acquisition - the firm's second this year - will result in lower fees for shareholders "of one of our key strategies, New Opportunities II," David Tucker, American Century's senior vice president of business development, said in a telephone interview. American Century will continue its acquisitions of mutual fund companies, seeking complexes with $500 million to $5 billion in assets that are looking to quit the business for strategic reasons, he said.
Kopp's agreement with American Century, to be completed by late February, will allow Kopp to "get back to our roots," focusing on private account management, said Sally A. Anderson, Kopp's executive vice president and senior portfolio manager. The complexity and cost of growing a mutual fund business in today's regulatory environment were factors in Kopp's decision, she said.
