The Baltimore brokerage and fund company Legg Mason (LM) has acquired Berkshire Asset Management, Inc. The Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania investment advisory firm manages approximately $600 million in separate accounts for high-net-worth individuals and institutions, adding to the $6 billion in the high-net-worth market that Legg Mason already runs through regional asset managers in Cincinnati and New York. Terms of the cash transaction were not disclosed.

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"Berkshire is an important piece of our separate accounts strategy," said Lisa Spector, senior vice president of Legg Mason. "We don't want any of our companies to compete with each other -- the range of these regional asset managers is small but the high-net-worth market is concentrated in the services offered to clients. And obviously the quality of the principals is of great importance as well."

Berkshire had been owned by its two principals -- Michael Cook, who founded the company in 1986 and serves as its president and chief executive officer, and Kenneth Krogulski, executive vice president and chief investment officer. Both Cook and Krogulski have agreed to remain at the company under long-term employment agreements and Legg Mason says that "no management or other organizational changes are anticipated."

"We are very pleased that this fine organization has chosen to join the Legg Mason `family,'" said Raymond Mason, chairman and chief executive officer of Legg Mason in a statement. "The expansion of our high net worth and wealth management business is one of our primary goals -- and the principal goal of the Legg Mason Trust Company -- and we expect Mike and Ken will be helpful in moving this important initiative forward."

Spector added that Legg Mason would continue to look at regional separate accounts managers as possible acquisition targets as part of an on-going process of growing out its high-net-worth business. 

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