Whatifi Financial, one of the "new age" fund firms founded during the Internet boom has returned the funds' assets to investors. The firm ceased offering shares of the five Van Ness Funds yesterday.

The decision to liquidate the funds was based on economics, according to a spokesperson for the company. He cited a "lack of customer and lack of assets coming through distribution partners." However, the funds have not been deregistered and trust has not been disolved, said the spokesperson.

"Whatifi Financial is still completely intact and the entire management team and personnel is entirely intact," he added. Indeed, the firm is willing to take on new distribution partners. Since the firm has built a new technology to operate the funds and relies on indexing rather than active management retaining a team of investment professionals is not the key issue.

Whatifi had been distributing the funds through an alliance with CIBC Amicus. That deal put the funds into the financial services kiosks located in Safeway and Winn-Dixie supermarkets.

The firm had most recently raised capital from CIBC Capital Partners and Shawmut Capital Partners in February 2001. It uses Bisys for fund administration and SunGard to handle shareholder services.  

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