DARDEN GRADUATE HONORED FOR 
EASTERN EUROPEAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Jan. 7 -- A key role in the
privatization of the Czech Republic's state-held industries has
earned a recent graduate of the University of Virginia's Darden
School a major award for creative management.
	George E. Collins, who earned both an M.B.A. from the
graduate business school and a degree from U.Va.'s Law School in
1992, was among this year's recipients of the Richard L. Rosenthal
Award for Innovation in Investment Management/Corporate Finance.
Winners of the award are nominated by seven American business
schools.
	Collins, 33, co-managed the formation of a mutual fund that
holds and manages shares of formerly state-held companies given to
Czech citizens last year as part of a national privatization plan.
His employer, the U.S. investment banking firm CS First Boston, has
pioneered the development of private capital markets in Russia,
Hungary and Poland in addition to the former Czechoslovakia.
	Hundreds of other financial management groups were vying to
manage the stock that the new investors would get in a "voucher
privatization" program to distribute shares in 2,000 state-owned
companies, Collins noted in a report on the project. Many tried to
lure investors with lotteries, prizes, cash handouts and dubious
promises of guaranteed returns, he added.
	Collins and his co-manager, a Czech investment banker, used
press conferences, seminars and advertising to educate shareholders
on investments and stress the new fund's expertise and emphasis on
service. They signed up more than 70,000 investors, and the CS First
Boston-managed mutual fund ranked in the top 15 out of 350
investment funds of all types started during the period.
	In nominating Collins for the award, the Darden faculty
cited his "work in helping with the transformation of former
communist economies to market economies."
	The Rosenthal Award recognizes noteworthy innovation in the
fields of investment management and corporate finance by men and
women under 35 years of age. It was established by the Richard and
Hinda Rosenthal Foundation, a charitable trust founded in 1948.
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January 6, 1995