2 Colleagues form Bankers Trust Rejoin Equity Fund Star Strong Capital

Top equity mutual fund manager Mary Lisanti has snared two of her former Bankers Trust New York Corp. colleagues for her team at Strong Capital Management.

Jeffrey Bernstein and Nancy Ward joined Milwaukee-based Strong in January, a spokeswoman said.

Mr. Bernstein was hired as an analyst and will co-manage with Ms. Lisanti the Strong Small Cap Fund. Ms. Ward was also hired as an analyst, the spokeswoman said.

Ms. Lisanti turned heads last August when she jumped to Strong from Bankers Trust, where she had been managing the BT Investment Small Cap Fund since 1993.

The Bankers Trust fund received five stars from Morningstar, the mutual fund rating agency, for the three-year period ended Oct. 31, 1996. The small cap fund recorded a 59.48% return for the 12 months through September 1995.

She also managed the BT Pyramid Small Cap Fund for institutional investors and the BT Investment and BT Pyramid Capital Appreciation funds.

Mr. Bernstein put in a stint at Berkeley Capital Management Inc. before joining Strong.

Before that, he was a member of Bankers Trust's small and mid-cap fund management team. He has also worked as an analyst at Crown Asset Management, Cowen & Co., and 13D Research.

Ms. Ward was a senior equity analyst at Bankers Trust's global investment management division.

She was also a financial analyst at a unit of Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. and at Morgan Stanley & Co. Bankers Trust is looking to replace Ms. Ward, a company spokesman said.

Before joining Bankers Trust, Ms. Lisanti was a portfolio manager at Lieber & Co., where she oversaw an $800 million small and mid-cap fund.

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