PART II:(this is the continuation of my previous statement). Low and behold I find out on Monday, because of large demand, that Fidelity would not be offering the fund to their retail clients (which meant me), but only to Fidelity Advisor clients. PBHG had allocated $20 million of the Limited fund to Fidelity and Schwab respectively. In no way was either Fidelity or PBHG willing to accomodate my desire to purchase the fund eventhough it was their mistatements which led me to believe that I would be able to buy the fund through Fidelity's FundsNetwork. Luckily, however, I was able to find an application, and I overnighted a check on July 1st to PBHG. I recieved confirmation in the mail a few days of my purchase into the Limited Fund.
There are a couple of lessons one can gather from the above experience:
1) Contact the fund directly to inquire about upcoming fund offerings, especially from fund companies with performance numbers such as PBHG's. You may want to do this up to four times a year--and be sure your on their mailing list.
2) Purchase shares directly with the fund. This way you will not get locked out by either a Fidelity or a Schwab when it comes to time to purchase shares.
3) Make sure you are aware of any clauses or circumstances in which the fund might become closed to new investors--this is when time is not on your side. Remember Limited Fund was only supposed to accept $100 million and closed in two days and instead accepted $150 million. Van Waggoner's new funds also have similar provisions--if their not already closed to new investors.
4) Keep your eyes and ears open. Hopefully this forum will help keep investors up to speed on new fund offerings. In fact if anyone knows of any hot new funds coming out, please respond.
Now for some facts on what is all the hoopla about surronding this new offering, the Limited Fund. The Limited Fund as some of you have stated previously is run by Christine Baxter, the porfolio manager of PBHG's top performing Emerging Growth Fund with a total return for the 1-yr period ending 6/30/96 of 50.4% and a 3-yr average of 42.9%. It seeks to invest in micro-cap stocks (those with market caps of $250 million or less). Remarkably this was the same criteria under which Emerging Growth was initially created; however as Emerging Growth's assets grew to over $1 billion it became increasingly more difficult to invest in these smaller co.'s. Thus the Limited Fund was created to allay shareholder concerns over the size of Emerging Growth.
I hope some of you find this information useful. Paco. |
