European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - July 23, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday july 23, 1991 the stars and stripes b Page 17 n s w. N today s tip Raythelon co. Has beaten out Hughes aircraft co. In a Battle for a $265 million defense department contract for nearly 5,300 Maverick air to surface missiles. The contract which Calls for Raythelon to deliver 5,255 missiles to the air Force and 36 to the Navy runs through april 1994. The missiles will replace ones used in the persian Gulf War. A Raythelon spokesman Dick Sherman said the award returned the contract to the company from Hughes which had it last year. Raythelon was the Maverick contractor in 1989. Most of the work on the Maverick will be done in Bristol  rates London up a mondays closing rates for the . Dollar to other currencies. Figures Are expressed in dollars to the British Pound other local currencies in dollars Gold was quoted at $369.75 an ounce Silver at $4.40. July 19 july 22 British pound.1.681 1.6825 German mark.1.7555 1.7550 French franc.5.9835 5.9685 dutch guilder.1.9785 1.9775 belgian franc.36.15 a italian lira.1,312.20 1,309.5 Swiss franc.1.5190 1.5175 greek drachma.192.20 192.45 turkish lira .�.4,347.30 4,356.70 saudi arabian riyal.3.7502 a 3.7502 Spanish peseta.109.65 109.72 portuguese escudo.150.55 150.60 Canadian dollar.1.1558 1.1580 austrian schilling.12.356 12.3785 norwegian krone.6.8365 6.8550 danish krone.6.79 6.8010 these Are unofficial rates As reported by wire service and banking sources and they Are listed to give some idea of daily currency fluctuations. The Only official rate concerns the Sale of German Marks to . Personnel for personal use and this will be 1.71 through tuesday based on mondays noontime Price fixing. A Burger King slimming Down fast food menu new York a Burger King is seeing whether it can attract More customers by putting weight watchers Brand items on its menu. The Miami based fast food giant has began a test at one Miami outlet that offers nearly a dozen items made by weight watchers International which has previously sold diet oriented foods Only through grocery stores. Burger King plans to expand the test to a second site in Miami next month. The items Range from pancakes to lasagna to brownies. The test is the latest example of a fast food company trying to beef up business by offering lower fat alternatives to regular hamburgers. Mcdonald a corp., the fast food Leader recently introduced a Mclean deluxe hamburger. Last week Hardeep a food systems introduced an and Campaign in support of its own reduced fat hamburger that pokes fun at the Mclean deluxe. Cori Zywotow a spokeswoman a her company recently reformulated its by broiler grilled Chicken Sandwich to Cut the fat and reduce the calories. Big Southern Banks to merge become nation s third largest Atlanta a a cab corp., spurned two years ago said monday it will Combine with a amps sovran corp. To create a regional banking superpower with operations stretching from Maryland to Texas. The two Banks announced they would merge into nation Bank which would be the third largest Bank in the country with assets of $118 billion. It was the second huge banking merger announced in a week reflecting efforts by Bankers to find strength in size. The companies said in a statement that the marriage will produce a one of the largest and Best capitalized financial institutions in the  the name nation Bank has been used for More than a year with the a cab credit card Bank and already has cleared All Legal and marketing tests the company said. Charlotte based a cab announced last month it was negotiating a merger with rival a amps sovran which is the product of the 1989 merger of Atlanta based citizens amp Southern corp. And Norfolk based sovran financial corp. Under terms of the Deal a amps sovran shareholders would get 0.84 share of a cab Stock for each share of a amps sovran Stock. Based on fridays closing Price of $37 for a cab the Deal would be Worth $31.08 a share or nearly $4.3 billion. On the new York Stock Exchange on Friday a amps sovran closed Down 25 cents a share at $25.78. In Early trading monday on the new York Stock Exchange a cab was Down $1.37>/2 at $35.62vi per share while a amps sovran gained $1.12v at $27 per share in Active trading. The combination would be the second Mega merger in the banking business in a week. Last monday new York banking giants chemical banking corp. And manufacturers Hanover corp. Announced they would merge to form the second largest Bank in the nation with $135 billion in assets. The largest . Bank new Yorkus Citicorp has $217 billion in assets. A amps sovran chairman Bennett Brown will become nation Bank chairman and a cab chairman High Mccoll will be chief executive. A what we have created is an institution that is unique in american banking and a company that is strategically positioned to compete successfully in the . And the world a Mccoll said. A cab is the nations seventh largest Bank with assets of $65.3 billion. It has 900 branches in North Carolina South Carolina Florida Georgia Texas Virginia and Maryland. A amps sovran has $51.2 billion in assets making it the nations no. 12 Bank. It has 1,000 branches in Virginia Maryland Tennessee Kentucky Georgia South Carolina Florida and Washington. A cab attempted a takeover of a amps of Atlanta in 1989, but backed Down after Brown refused to talk to Mccoll about a Deal. Bank analysts have speculated that the sharply divergent styles of the hard charging a cab and the conservative a amps sovran would complicate the merger. Over the Ping term Mutual funds have been slipping in performance by Thomas Easton the Baltimore Sun new York a if there is any consensus about How the Little Guy should Cope with the investment worlds complexities it is this purchasing a diversified portfolio of Mutual funds selected after careful consideration of Long term results. A Long term look at the numbers however suggests those results have been misleading because the Best numbers Are becoming increasingly bad. Cumulative 10-year results of the top 25 Mutual funds tracked by Lipper analytical services have been steadily declining since 1984 a and have plunged this year. Begin with the largest Mutual fund of All Fidelity a Magellan fund which spent 1983 through 1990 at the top of the charts. With $15.7 billion in assets the fund has More Money deposited in its safekeeping than All but the largest Banks. The Man orchestrating its investments Peter Lynch retired last year at age 46, lauded As a guru who could divine the tastes and trends of America and make even the Wall Street illiterate Rich in the process. Supporting this claim was a remarkable 10-year record. Vanguard Merrill Lynch and others had their own outstanding Stock pickers whose results were trumpeted in numerous ads. Great Long term results became As close to gospel As anything in the investment world. It was impossible for even casual readers of financial publications to miss a simple fact had they handed Over their piddling savings to these funds they would have become Rich. Which by and Large they did no to. And that is the Core of this Story. Most of these funds racked up their Best years in the mid to late 1970s and Early 1980s, when the funds themselves were tiny because they were unknown and the Market was Low because it was despised. When both these situations reversed the results did too. As is often the Case in the investment world by the time those results became visible the Success had already begun to taper off. Without some very Good Fortune it will taper off even More. In 1975 and 1980, the Stock Market recorded its biggest yearly gains since the roaring �?T20s. Not coincidentally each time one of those ears has slipped off the 10-year tallies Ong term results for top Mutual funds have dropped dramatically. That is particularly True for Fidelity a Magellan. Its 10-year cumulative appreciation fell from a High of 1,784 percent at the i end of 1984 the last year 1975 numbers were included to 1,124 at the end of 1989 the last year 1980 results were included to 588 percent at the end of 1990. The current decade unlike the last began with a sigh. The Benchmark Stan t Dard amp poor a 500 fell 3 percent As opposed to rising 32.45 percent 10 years before. Fidelity a Magellan managed by a successor to Lynch fell 4.5 percent. Perhaps Lynch could have done better. But it is one thing to do spectacularly Well during an unusually Good year and quite another to do equally Well amid a Broad decline. During the first half of this year Magellan Rose a whopping 23.35 percent. But for its Overall 10-year record to stay even it will need to hold those gains and to do even better during the next two years. Magellan a problems Are extreme but not unique. Other big funds such As vanguards Windsor and Merrill Lynch a Pacific a have seen their results erode. As is typical a in everything from baseball averages to the size of children from different families a the exceptional appears to be regressing Back to the Norm. The results of the Best fund managers have drawn closer to the results of the Dow Jones Industrial average. Twa american bid for pan am s remains new York apr trans world airlines and american airlines plunged monday into the bidding for parts of bankrupt pan am  $310 million package for key operations and routes divvied up Between them. Twa chairman Carl Icahn whose own airline has been flirting with bankruptcy itself said the joint proposal with american would save 14,000 to 15,000 jobs at pan am. A the proposal was almost certain to in the airline sought Refuge under Federal bankruptcy Law in january and has been seeking to sell itself in pieces to satisfy creditors. Any Purchase of pan am assets would require approval of the bankruptcy court. Earlier this month Delta air lines offered $260 million for largely the same operations that Twa and american want. United airlines and Northwest airlines also have been nosing around the leftovers. Twa said it would obtain $250 million of the financing from american and would split up purchased routes with american. Under the offer american would get pan am a East coast shuttle and pan am routes Between the United states and Italy and Spain Portugal and Italy. Twa would get the Frankfurt operation and routes Between London Miami and Detroit. A the combination of Twa and pan cite a bidding struggle for what remains of pan am one of the oldest and Best known . Airlines that pioneered commercial aviation but has been foundering badly for months. There was no immediate response from Delta on the rival offer. Twa said in a statement that its $310 million proposal included $280 million Cash and $30 million in ticket liabilities. A am represents the Best oppor Tummy for the survival and Success of Twa pan am a Icahn said. He said it is also in the Best interests of the airlines creditors employees and travellers