Thursday's WSJ Fund Track column covers Deutsche Bank's decision to drop the venerable Scudder brand from its mutual funds, a topic that was covered here on Wednesday morning, (MFWire, July 16, 2008).

Of course, the disappearance of the Scudder brand should not be a surprise. And, Deutsche's top brass has had high hopes for the U.S. market ever since they bought Scudder from Zurich in 2001. The push also makes sense in light of the bank's many hires in recent years.

The paper hits all of the high notes, including Deutsche's plans to woo U.S fund investors through the DWS Investments unit. DWS executives expect to close on $11.2 billion in new sales in 2008, a nearly nine percent increase from last year. Still, that growth will have to hit a new gear to make the bank's U.S. fund operations match those in Europe.

DWS now claims $345.9 billion in retail AUM, but only a quarter of that is in the Americas while nearly three quarters is in Europe and another five percent is in Asia.

DWS now also employs 406 people in the U.S. compared to 341 at the end of 2005.

The paper also highlights Philipp Hensler coining of a colorful new term for the current market. The DWS Investments Distributor CEO and chairman called the current market the "the Bermuda Triangle of asset management."

"We think this low-return environment will stay for the foreseeable future," was another quote picked up by the paper. 

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