Quiet growth.

American Funds, a division of L.A.-based Capital Group of Cos., has become the first mutual-fund company to manage more than $1 trillion in its investment portfolio as of March 31. This is according to estimates recently released by research firm Financial Research Corp. The fund's closest rival is Vanguard Group, which had $990 billion under management, followed by Fidelity Investments with $864 billion.

American Funds has seen strong interest in its funds from financial advisers and brokers as the firm captured almost 20 percent of the $134 billion in new money that U.S. fund companies gathered in the first three months of this year.

But despite the growth and the fact that five of the 10 largest equity funds in the country are all part of American Funds, there has been little fanfare or increased marketing activities.

"Unless you're an active mutual fund investor, you might not even know who we are," said company spokesman Chuck Friedhoff. "You won't see us on television or doing a lot of advertising and we like it that way."

In fact, actual fund managers don't even talk to the press, a culture more like a hedge fund than a mutual fund. However, as far as investment strategy, the fund is nowhere near as cowboy as hedge funds.

"We sell our products through advisers and don't tend to get too cute with our strategy as we're focused on long-term growth and consistency of returns. We're conservative in that way," Friedhoff said.

Contributing to the overall return growth were two of the better performing funds at opposite ends of the asset spectrum. The largest fund of the group, Growth Fund of America, returned 8 percent last year. And one of the smaller funds, New World Fund, delivered a 21.9 percent return in 2006.

Staff reporter Jabulani Leffall can be reached at [e-mail] or [phone], ext. 228