CI Investments Inc. announced Friday several changes to its fund line-up, including mergers, name changes and one portfolio management change.

A number of these changes follow the elimination of the foreign content limit for registered plans, says Peter Anderson, CI President and CEO. “We are taking advantage of this change to further streamline our lineup and gain additional efficiencies for our fund investors, after having terminated 40 RSP funds earlier this year.”

CI is proposing to amalgamate Synergy Canadian Fund Inc. into CI Corporate Class Limited. As a result of the amalgamation, shareholders of Synergy Canadian Fund, which currently has five funds, will become shareholders of CI Corporate Class, which has 42 funds. Two of the Synergy Canadian Fund classes will be merged into CI Corporate Class funds, while the remaining three will be converted into funds within CI Corporate Class.

CI says the end of the foreign property rule has allowed for the amalgamation because Synergy Canadian Fund is considered Canadian content for registered plans and CI Corporate Class is foreign content.

“The merger of these two corporate class structures means that these investors will have a broader, clearer set of tax-efficient investment choices, while we eliminate the costs of running two of these corporations,” Anderson says.

In conjunction with the mergers, CI is proposing that Synergy Canadian Class become Synergy Canadian Corporate Class, Synergy Canadian Style Management Class become Synergy Canadian Style Management Corporate Class, and Signature Canadian Small Cap Class become Signature Canadian Small Cap Corporate Class.

In addition, BPI American Equity Fund will be renamed CI American Equity Fund and BPI American Equity Corporate Class will be renamed CI American Equity Corporate Class. As a result of these changes and the mergers, CI will no longer be using the BPI brand on any of its mutual funds.

The BPI fund portfolios have been managed by Trilogy Advisors, LLC since January 2005, when Trilogy and BPI Global Asset Management LLP announced an agreement to combine their firms.

Several segregated funds that invest in BPI American Fund will also change their names: BPI American Equity Segregated Fund will be renamed CI American Equity Segregated Fund; BPI American Equity Guaranteed Investment Fund will be renamed CI American Equity Guaranteed Investment Fund; and Clarica SF CI BPI American Equity Fund will be renamed Clarica SF CI American Equity Fund.

The underlying fund for BPI Global Equity Segregated Fund will change from BPI Global Equity Fund to CI Global Fund, and the fund’s name will be changed to CI Global Segregated Fund.

CI is also discontinuing a number of CI Guaranteed Investment Funds, including all Class A and B versions, and reallocating their assets to the respective continuing funds. In all cases, the underlying mutual fund of the discontinued GIF has the same portfolio manager as that of the respective continuing GIF.
The name changes, segregated fund changes and the merger of CI Global Opportunities III Fund will be effective November 28.

Special meetings will be held in Toronto on or about November 24, 2005, at which investors in the terminating mutual funds will vote on the proposed mergers, and shareholders in Synergy Canadian Fund Inc. will vote on the proposal to amalgamate it with CI Corporate Class Limited. If approved, the mutual fund mergers and the amalgamation will also take effect November 28.

CI also announced that well-known small-cap manager Peter Hodson has left Waterfall Investments Inc. but will continue as portfolio manager of the funds he currently advises for CI: Signature Canadian Small Cap Class, CI Explorer Fund, CI Explorer Corporate Class, and the small-cap growth components of Synergy Canadian Style Management Class, Synergy Tactical Asset Allocation Fund and Synergy Extreme Canadian Equity Fund.

As a result, CI replaces Waterfall as portfolio advisor to those funds, effective October 1. Hodson has achieved strong results, with Signature Canadian Small Cap Class, for example, posting first-quartile returns over the one and three-year periods ending August 31, 2005.