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New Marsico fund debuts
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February 2, 2000: 6:32 p.m. ET
Manager Jim Hillary is looking for good growth stocks of any size
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Marsico Capital Management may be known for its large-cap mutual funds, but manager Jim Hillary on Wednesday went shopping for some of the smaller names on Wall Street.
Hillary is heading the new Marsico 21st Century Fund, a fund that can invest in stocks of any size. The fund started selling shares on Tuesday, and Hillary started building the portfolio on Wednesday (he won't say what he's buying).
"We're very excited about the opportunities," Hillary said. "We have a team that's full of great ideas."
Marsico Funds, founded by former Janus star manager Tom Marsico, has traditionally been a large-cap shop. Marsico Focus Fund earned 55.3 percent in 1999, while Marsico Growth & Income Fund gained 53.3 percent in the same time, according to fund-tracker Morningstar.
The company decided to launch a new fund to find a place for smaller stocks that fell through the cracks, Hillary said.
"There are many great ideas over the past two years we couldn't use because of market cap restrictions," Hillary said.
While the fund ideally would be split evenly among small-, mid- and large-cap names, Hillary said it's likely it will tilt towards mid- and large-cap stocks for the present.
Hillary said he'll consider technology as well as other sectors.
"I'm very open-minded," Hillary said. "I've invested for 12 years across many industries, from oil and gas industries to supermarket industries to technology."
Hillary said the managers take a team approach to stock-picking, and that Tom Marsico would be throwing ideas his way. Hillary also works on the Focus and Growth & Income funds.
"Everything we do at Marsico is a collaboration," Hillary said.
Speaking of Janus, new figures from mutual-fund researcher TrimTabs.com shows that Janus equity funds took in at least $7.6 billion in January, far outpacing the inflows into any other stock fund family.
In fact, a Janus spokeswoman said the company's equity funds took in a record $9.3 billion. The difference has to do with the fact that TrimTabs does not cover some of the Janus funds, including its No. 2 equity performer in January - Janus Global Technology Fund.
Overall, equity funds took in $24 billion for the month, TrimTabs said. But of the 88 equity fund families that it tracks, only 24 enjoyed net inflows; three remained unchanged, and 61 experienced outflows of $500,000 or more, TrimTabs research director Carl Wittnebert said.
Among the other top performers in the month, Fidelity equity funds brought in $2.1 billion as of Jan. 28, spokeswoman Anne Crowley said.
Vanguard stock funds, meanwhile, received $2.5 billion in January, according to company spokesman John Demming. 
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