State Street Bumps Minimum to $500M
We learned from Strategic Insight's SimFundFiling that, "The State Street Institutional Money Market funds will increase the minimum initial investment for Premier Class shares from $25,000,000 to $500,000,000, and the State Street Institutional Liquid Reserves fund will increase the minimum initial investment for Class M shares from $250,000,000 to $750,000,000." State Street's Prospectus Supplement for the State Street Institutional Liquid Reserves Fund says, "The following information supplements and supersedes any information to the contrary relating to State Street Institutional Liquid Reserves Fund, a series of State Street Institutional Investment Trust (the "Fund"), contained in the Fund's Prospectus. Effective immediately, the following replaces the table in the Fund's Prospectus under the heading "Purchase and Sale of Fund Shares" on page 7 of the Prospectus.... The minimum initial investment in Class M shares of the Fund is $750,000,000, although the Adviser may waive the minimum in its discretion. Holdings of related customer accounts may be aggregated for purposes of determining the minimum investment amount. "Related customer accounts" may include, but are not limited to, accounts held by the same investment or retirement plan, financial institution, broker, dealer or intermediary. The Fund and the Adviser reserve the right to increase or decrease the minimum amount required to open or maintain an account. There is no minimum subsequent investment, except in relation to maintaining certain minimum account balances.... The Fund requires prior notification of subsequent investments in excess of $50,000,000." In other news, the Financial Times writes "Liquidity deteriorates for US Treasuries," which briefly mentions money funds towards the end. It says, "Money market funds that exchange cash with banks in return for high quality collateral such as Treasuries via a repurchase, or "repo", agreement are bracing for poorer market liquidity in the coming weeks. Banks say balance sheet pressures have forced them to pull back from the repo business. Debbie Cunningham, senior portfolio manager at Federated Investors said some banks have retreated from repo transactions with money market funds. "We are concerned," she said. "We saw it at quarter end and it will be even worse now."" The piece adds, "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York runs its own repo programme, allowing investors to trade with it either overnight or for a longer period, called "term repo". At the end of the third quarter the Fed expanded its programme to $450bn. Last week, it announced a term repo programme of $300bn beginning on December 18.... `Dealers estimate that a further $450bn to $750bn will need to be added in overnight trades, according to a survey run by the Fed in October."
