Merger of fund families near end

Bank of America Corp. yesterday said it had completed much of the consolidation of its two mutual fund families, including renaming 45 of its Nations mutual funds with the Columbia brand name it acquired when it bought the former FleetBoston Financial Corp. in April 2004.

While Bank of America had long telegraphed that its own in-house Nations fund would be renamed under Fleet's Columbia brand, the process of integrating the two mutual fund families has proved time-consuming. Since acquiring Fleet, Bank of America has been conducting a fund-by-fund review of the two investment operations, streamlining the far-flung offerings by eliminating overlapping funds and merging poor performers into similar funds with better records.

The combined operations are based in Boston.

Like many other large mutual fund families, both the Columbia and Nations funds had a few strong performers mixed in with mostly average to lackluster offerings. Company officials have argued that a leaner lineup would allow Columbia to retain the best funds of both operations while turning over money from the weaker funds to those managers who have better records.

Columbia also said the merged lineup will benefit from economies of scale that should result in lower fees for shareholders.

Much of the winnowing took place in the Columbia side of the fund lineup. Seven funds were eliminated outright, and almost two dozen more merged into others.

By mid-October Columbia expects to have reduced the number of retail, long-term mutual funds to around 85, from approximately 120.

It has another 20 or so money market funds and a number of closed-end funds, and funds reserved for institutional accounts.

Bank of America spokesman Tom Gariepy said the company closely studied which of the two brand names would win out in the merger, and concluded that the ''Columbia name was the stronger brand for us."

As of June 30, the two operations had about $192 billion in long- and short-term mutual fund assets.

Andrew Caffrey can be reached at caffrey@globe.com.