Short Takes: First Union Hires Manager from Pioneer

First Union Corp. announced Tuesday that it has snagged a star portfolio manager from the Pioneer Funds as chief investment officer for its Keystone line of equity mutual funds.

Warren Isabelle, 45, will start work Feb. 10 at Keystone Investment Management Co., a Boston unit of the Charlotte, N.C., banking company. The Keystone Funds, which First Union acquired in December, make up 40% of the company's $29 billion-asset Evergreen Keystone Funds family.

Until last week, Mr. Isabelle was head of Pioneer's special equities group. A 12-year veteran of the company's Boston-based parent company, Pioneering Management, Mr. Isabelle had managed the Pioneer Capital Growth Fund since its inception in 1990.

Mutual fund rating agency Morningstar awarded his fund its top rating of five stars as of Dec. 31, 1996.

In his new post, Mr. Isabelle will oversee Keystone's equity portfolio managers and eventually run his own fund. Keystone has 12 equity portfolios with $5 billion of assets.

First Union has made a point of recruiting from mutual fund companies rather than relying mainly on homegrown talent in its growing asset management business.

Donald McMullen, executive vice president for capital management, and William M. Ennis, president of Evergreen Keystone Investment Services, both came from fund companies. And Stephen A. Lieber, founder of the Evergreen Funds, joined the banking company when it bought his asset management business in 1994.

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