BankAmerica Sells Fund Business to Execs

BankAmerica Corp. sold its Robertson Stephens Investment Management business to its senior managers, five months after putting the fund company up for sale as it merged with NationsBank Corp. BankAmerica didn’t disclose a sale price for the San Francisco-based fund business, which manages about $4 billion in assets. Analysts said it’s worth at most $100 million. G. Randy Hecht, founder and chief executive of the 14-year-old business, will serve as chairman and CEO of the new company. The sale follows months of negotiations with potential outside buyers after BankAmerica decided to divest the Robertson Stephens fund management business as it merged with NationsBank to form the largest U.S. bank, now called BankAmerica. “We strongly believe that returning to our roots as a private company with the same leadership team that founded the company in 1984 is the ideal ownership structure for our mutual fund shareholders,” Hecht said. Shares of Charlotte, N.C.-based BankAmerica rose 31 cents to close at $61.56 on the New York Stock Exchange.