More than other Wall Street firms, though, it has been buffeted by the regulatory storm over how it markets its proprietary funds.

Pure retail fund flows into the proprietary funds of Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and others have been stagnant in recent years, they say.

He added that Citi has no proprietary mutual funds anymore, so the temptation to put customers in them doesn't exist for the myFi staff.

Nicholas-Applegate also advises several fund groups, including the Enterprise Group of Funds and others using the same strategy as the company's proprietary funds.

He recently added three asset-allocation funds to the other proprietary funds he introduced five years ago, for example, and may add more mutual funds.

These include various kinds of insurance, stock and bond brokerage and the company's more than $30 billion of proprietary mutual funds.

State and local governments use three broad categories of funds: governmental funds, proprietary funds and fiduciary funds.

Depending on its use, a fixed asset may instead be financed by a special revenue fund or a proprietary fund.

The debts of special assessment and proprietary funds are serviced within those funds, rather than by a separate debt service fund.

To sell a proprietary mutual fund can mean a four-figure back-end commission on a $20,000 mutual fund.