There has been a steady stream of money market fund liquidations over the past year, with many occurring in the Tax Exempt, or Municipal, sector. The latest of these comes from Western Asset Management, which recently merged its $570 million Western Asset Institutional AMT Free Municipal Money Market Fund into the $1.1 billion Western Asset Institutional Tax Free Reserves Fund. The prospectus supplement filing says, "The Board of Trustees, on behalf of the fund, has approved a reorganization pursuant to which the fund's assets would be acquired, and its liabilities would be assumed, by Western Asset Institutional Tax Free Reserves, a series of the Trust, in exchange for shares of the Acquiring Fund. Your fund and the Acquiring Fund are both money market funds with substantially similar investment objectives and investment strategies. After the reorganization, the fund would be liquidated, and shares of the Acquiring Fund would be distributed to fund shareholders. The fund will be closed ... on or about July 24, 2015." According to the August Money Fund Intelligence XLS, there are currently 379 Tax-Exempt MMFs, down from 397 in August 2014. Below, we recap a number of recent and pending MMF liquidations.
Regarding pending liquidations, in July, we reported that BlackRock was liquidating 3 Muni MMFs as part of its reorganization plan. The firm filed with the SEC to close three state funds -- BlackRock New Jersey Municipal Money Market Portfolio, BlackRock North Carolina Municipal Money Market Portfolio and BlackRock Virginia Municipal Money Market Portfolio -- to new investors and thereafter to liquidate the Funds. The filing says, "On or about December 15, 2015 ... all of the assets of the Funds will be liquidated completely, the shares of any shareholders holding shares on the Liquidation Date will be redeemed at the net asset value per share and each Fund will then be terminated as a series of the Trust. Shareholders may redeem their Fund shares or exchange their shares into an appropriate class of shares of another money market fund advised by BlackRock Advisors, LLC or its affiliates at any time prior to the Liquidation Date." The funds currently have about $110 million in total.
In June, Federated also announced plans to streamline its MMF lineup by merging 7 funds into similar funds, including the Federated Municipal Cash Series ($249M) into Federated Municipal Obligations ($2.3B). Other pending mergers include: Federated Automated Cash Management Trust ($1.3B) and Federated Prime Cash Series ($2.9B) into Federated Prime Cash Obligations ($15.3B); Federated Treasury Cash Series ($1.6B) into Federated Trust for US Treasury Obligations ($130M); Federated Government Cash Series ($818M) into Federated Government Obligations ($26.1B); Federated Liberty US Govt ($93M) into Federated Government Reserves ($11.2B), and Federated Automated Government Cash Reserves ($230M) into Federated Government Obligations Tax Managed ($5.1B). Also, Federated acquired the assets of the Touchstone Ohio Tax Free MMF and merged it into the Federated Ohio Municipal Cash Trust.
Federated also recently acquired Reich & Tang's MMFs. Specifically, several former Reich & Tang funds were merged into similar Federated funds, including 2 Tax-Free funds -- Municipal Portfolio and California Daily Tax Free Income Fund. Other Reich & Tang funds merged into Federated funds include Daily Income Fund -- Money Market Portfolio; U.S. Government Portfolio; U.S. Treasury Portfolio; and Daily Dollar International, Ltd., a Cayman Islands-domiciled money market fund.
Among other recent liquidations, Touchstone sold the assets of its Touchstone Tax Free MMF to Dreyfus. That fund was merged into Dreyfus General Municipal MMF. Also, Touchstone Institutional Money Market Fund was reorganized into Dreyfus Cash Management and Touchstone Money Market Fund was reorganized into Dreyfus General Money Market Fund.
In March, Alpine said it was liquidating its Alpine Municipal Money Market Fund. The filing reads, "On March 19, 2015, the Board of Trustees of the Alpine Municipal Money Market Fund, a series of the Alpine Income Trust determined that it is in the best interests of the Fund and its respective shareholders to liquidate the Fund on or about April 28, 2015." The fund had about $90 million in assets.
Also in March, Fidelity announced plans to merge away 6 funds, including Fidelity AMT Tax-Free Money Fund, which will be merged into CMF Tax-Exempt. They are also merging Select Money Market (into Fidelity Money Market), CMF Prime Fund Daily Money Class (into Fidelity Government Money Market), CMF Prime Fund Capital Reserves Class (into Fidelity Government Money Market), US Government Reserves (into Fidelity Government Money Market), CMF Government Daily Money (into Fidelity Government Money Market), and CMF Government Capital Reserves (into Fidelity Government Money Market).
In January, Huntington liquidated 2 of its Muni MMFs, Huntington Tax-Free MMF and Huntington Ohio Municipal MMF. And in December, JP Morgan Asset Management liquidated two Muni funds, JPM Michigan Municipal Money Market and JPM Ohio Municipal Money Market Fund. Also in December, BlackRock liquidated its BlackRock Cash Funds: Government. The filing states: "On November 19, 2014, the Board of Trustees of BlackRock Funds III approved a proposal to close BlackRock Cash Funds: Government to new investors and thereafter to terminate the Fund. BlackRock also liquidated Select and Trust share classes of its BlackRock Cash Inst, Prime and Treasury funds last year.
Going back to late 2014, two firms got out of the MMF business, Williams Capital and Virtus Investment Partners. Virtus liquidated 3 funds -- Virtus Insight Government Money Market Fund, Virtus Insight Money Market Fund, and Virtus Insight Tax‐Exempt Money Market Fund. Williams Capital liquidated its Williams Capital Government Money Fund and outsourced the management of its MMF to Northern Trust.
Regarding the closing of international MMFs, Western Asset Management also recently liquidated two of its "offshore" funds -- Western Asset Euro Liquidity Fund and Western Asset Sterling Liquidity Fund. A letter to clients said, "As a result of the continued low interest rate environment and recent redemptions that have significantly reduced the Fund's net asset value, the Directors have decided that the Fund is no longer economically viable and that it would be in the best interest of the Shareholders of the Fund to terminate the Fund." Also, Federated UK liquidated its Federated Short-Term Euro Prime Funds.
On June 19, JP Morgan also recently got rid of the "B" shares in three funds -- JP Morgan Prime Money Market Fund, JP Morgan Liquid Assets Money Market Fund, and JP Morgan US Treasury Plus Money Market Fund -- and merged them into other share classes of the same funds. PIMCO also merged 'B' share classes into A share classes for a number of funds, including PIMCO Money Market Fund.
SEI also filed with the SEC to liquidate share classes of several funds -- SEI Prime Obligations Fund, SEI Money Market Fund, SEI Government Fund, SEI Government II Fund, SEI Treasury Fund, and SEI Treasury II Fund. The B, C, and H shares will be converted into the A shares. Finally, in March, RBB liquidated 2 funds, the $9 million RBB Bedford Money Market Fund and the $1 million RBB Sansom Street MMF.
