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GROWING RICH WITH GROWTH STOCKS<br />
been down the same road a few years earlier and warned her about<br />
some of the pitfalls along the way. Another friendly voice was Ralph<br />
Wanger of the Acorn Funds. He also started his own firm after leaving<br />
Chicago’s Harris Associates. “Don and Ralph paved the way for me<br />
to go out on my own,” Bramwell says. “They were both very nice<br />
about advising me as I was getting organized. Their success was encouraging,<br />
but starting a new business was still challenging.”<br />
A SLOW START<br />
The prospectus for the Bramwell Growth Fund became effective on<br />
August 1, 1994. By the end of September, the fund had amassed only<br />
$5 million in assets. By year-end, that number jumped to around $13<br />
million. “I was disappointed that the fund grew so slowly because the<br />
break-even point in this business is high,” Bramwell admits. “Fortunately,<br />
we attracted some media attention, and the performance was<br />
good. There’s a lot of interest in mutual funds, and there are more<br />
and more magazines and TV shows that need fresh news material.<br />
Start-up funds have an advantage, since they are a new subject to<br />
cover. That’s helpful because advertising is expensive.” Still, she expected<br />
more money to <strong>com</strong>e in at the start, especially given her past<br />
high visibility.<br />
Once Bramwell was able to get her fund included in various noload,<br />
no-transaction-fee mutual fund supermarkets, including those<br />
operated by Charles Schwab and Fidelity Investments, assets started<br />
flowing in at a faster pace. Additionally, it didn’t hurt that in her first<br />
year out, not only was the overall stock market doing well, but the<br />
fund’s performance was also several percentage points ahead of the<br />
S&P 500. However, she made a costly error during the fourth quarter<br />
of 1995 by moving into tele<strong>com</strong>munications stocks at the wrong time,<br />
just before investor disenchantment with mobile-telephone equipment<br />
<strong>com</strong>panies surfaced. She ultimately pulled out and cut her losses short.<br />
Nevertheless, her performance suffered.<br />
THE LANDMARK RULING<br />
Bramwell set a precedent when the SEC issued a “no-action” letter<br />
that, in essence, allowed her to refer to her track record from Gabelli<br />
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