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BofA Closing $12B Fund

Laurie Kulikowski

Bank of America's(BAC Quote) asset management unit is shutting down a $12 billion money market fund after several large institutional investors took their money out amid losses on certain asset-backed securities, reports say.

Columbia Management, which has $709 billion in assets under management, is closing the Columbia Strategic Cash Portfolio fund. Just a few months ago, the fund had about $40 billion in assets, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The Columbia fund was an enhanced money fund -- a short-term investment pool that offered higher yields than a traditional money-market fund, the Journal reported. Unlike traditional money-market funds, the Strategic Cash fund didn't offer investors a guarantee that it would maintain a $1-per-share net asset value, although the fund was managed toward that goal, the Journal said.

The fund's current net asset value is 99.4 cents, it said.

Clients were being offered the option of cash redemptions or of switching their assets into other Columbia-managed funds, the Associated Press reported.

A BofA spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

The bank has been among the hardest hit by the credit crunch and mortgage crisis.

After the Charlotte-based lender's disastrous results last quarter in its global corporate and investment banking businesses -- the bank posted a 90% decline in earnings in the unit -- CEO Ken Lewis said the bank would "see where our strengths are and where they're not and act accordingly."

BofA said that it planned to slash 3,000 positions in total. More than 500 jobs have already been cut.

The company could face $3 billion in writedowns in the fourth quarter due to its investments in once-highly rated collateralized debt obligations, which have seen their values plummet, BofA said at an investor conference last month.

BofA also is working with Citigroup(C Quote) and JPMorgan Chase(JPM Quote) on putting together a super-fund to invest in troubled structured investment vehicles, off-balance sheet debt investment funds that have become difficult to price in the current credit environment.

French bank Societe General on Monday said it would bail out a $4.3 billion SIV and bring its losses onto its balance sheet. U.K.-based HSBC(HBC Quote) earlier this month became the first bank to absorb SIV losses onto its balance sheet when it shut down two troubled funds.