Money Management Executive articles from February 2008

Money Management Executive archives from February 2008

Boomers' 401(k) Plans Holding Economy Together.
February 4, 2008... The Baby Boomer generation is once again taking credit for saving the economy, according to Reuters. The enormous spending power of the 77 million citizens born between 1946 and 1964 has helped keep the last two consumer-led recessions...

Mass-Affluent Offices Driving UMA Growth.
February 4, 2008... MIAMI-Unified managed accounts (UMAs) continue to grow at the expense of legacy separately managed accounts (SMAs), according to a presentation at the National Investment Company Service Association's "7th Annual Managed Accounts Technology and...

U.S. Money Managers Fear Going Global: International Firms Could Poach Top American Talent.
February 4, 2008... Asset managers afraid to leave the safety of the herd are missing out on crucial opportunities for growth in international and emerging markets. If U.S. firms continue their reluctance to globalize, they may see their best managers and...

Democrats Consider Insurer Regulation Federal Oversight of Guarantors?
February 4, 2008... WASHINGTON-Democratic leaders of the House Financial Services Committee are exploring creating a federal regulator or modifying a multi-state compact to increase oversight and provide more uniform standards for insurers of municipal bonds and...

A Whole New Retirement Landscape.
February 4, 2008... In lockstep with a broadened direction by insurance firms to strip off the complex bells-and-whistles riders and bonuses of the recent past and to issue packaged retirement income solutions-and meet the demands of the new buzzword:...

Executive Moves.(Mark Fetting joins Legg Mason )
February 4, 2008... Fetting Takes Reins At Legg Mason Legg Mason has chosen Mark Fetting as chief executive and president of the $1 trillion Baltimore money-management firm. Fetting, 53, is currently senior vice president at the firm, and will succeed...

CFP Board Raises Planners' Ethical Standards.
February 11, 2008... The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards has raised the ethical standard guidelines for the 55,000 planners in the nation with CFP credentials, in order for investors to get better help in selecting among increasingly complex...

Merrill Lynch Rule to Result in Fewer, Nimbler Financial Advisers, Back Office.
February 11, 2008... MIAMI-The best way to shape the back office's response to the Merrill Lynch Rule was addressed in a presentation last month by Dr. Stephen Winks at the National Investment Company Service Association's 7th Annual Managed Accounts Technology and...

The Future of American Business: American Funds' Haaga Looks to the Future.(Paul Haaga)(Interview)
February 11, 2008... Ramifications from the Pension Protection Act's effect on investor inertia, changes to Rule 12b-1's regulation of expenses and a possible mandate by the Securities and Exchange Commission on independent directors are among the top concerns of...

Teachers Group Creates 403(b) Plan Blueprint: Toolkit Helps School Administrators Adjust to New Regs.
February 11, 2008... The huge burden of meeting new Internal Revenue Service retirement plan regulations just got a lot easier. A national education administration group has simplified the pending regulations governing responsibility of tax-sheltered annuity...

12b-1 Intertia Among Fund Predictions for 2008.
February 11, 2008... Seeing how the biggest story of 2007 was the subprime crisis, which only a few canny hedge fund managers foresaw, let's take a look ahead to potential news headlines for 2008. Who knows, we might even be as canny as the best of them. 12b-1...

Executive Moves.(Geoffrey R.T. Kenyon joined Dechert as a partner)(Brad Agadoni joins Mutual Fund Store)(Joshua Brooks and Kelly Morgan leaves Putnam Investments Inc.)
February 11, 2008... Kenyon Switches From Goodwin to Dechert Geoffrey R.T. Kenyon, who has extensive experience in working with a broad variety of investment management firms domiciled throughout the world, in addition to independent mutual fund directors, has...

A Whole New Retirement Landscape.
February 11, 2008... A Meeting of the Minds: Retirement Income Roundtable At SourceMedia New York Headquarters on Jan. 28, 2008 In lockstep with a broadened direction by insurance firms to strip off the complex bells-and-whistles riders and bonuses of the...

New Sourcing Models Create Both Opportunity, Risk.(Company overview)
February 11, 2008... Delegating key business operations to third-party providers such as custodians, administrators, distributors and transfer agents is certainly not new to asset managers. It is a traditional investment management business model which has been...

Of Space Ships and Fund Operations: Why Knowledge Matters.(Ken Mattingly)
February 11, 2008... Shortly before the Apollo 13 moon mission was to launch, the command module pilot, Ken Mattingly, was exposed to the German measles and pulled from the flight crew. Despite being grounded, Mattingly was nonetheless critical to the mission....

Week in Review.(financial regulation)
February 11, 2008... Japan Looks to Overhaul Financial Regulations Japan is hoping to strengthen its financial services industry by fundamentally changing industry regulations that have stymied growth, reports The Wall Street Journal. A proposal for a...

Julius Baer Pair Rakes In $120 Million in 9 Months.(Brief article)
February 18, 2008... Two senior-level executives with Julius Baer earned compensation packages worth $120 million in the first nine months of 2007, according to a regulatory filing. Richard Pell, CEO and CIO of the investment management unit, and Rudolph-Riad...

Safe Subprime Bets: Money, Bond Funds Benefit From Shelter Moves.
February 18, 2008... As the subprime contagion infects new corners of the financial markets, portfolio managers are voting with their feet and moving money into what are perceived to be safer investments. Among the prime beneficiaries of this flight to safety...

Race for Institutional Dollars Could: Compromise Hedge Funds' Integrity.
February 18, 2008... Hedge funds are a little too secretive for the appetite of most institutional investors, but if the funds change too much in order to suit a broader audience, they could lose the very thing that made them appealing. The cachet of the inside...

Web 2.0 Tools Could Complicate Efforts.(Conference notes)
February 18, 2008... IT practitioners and other tech types will kick off this week's 26th Annual NICSA conference and expo in Miami by addressing how fund companies will manage the industry's international expansion. The conference's first panel, to be...

Executive Moves.(Prudential Fixed Income Management appointed Michael Lillard and Arvind Rajan)
February 18, 2008... Prudential Fixed Income Taps New CIO Prudential Fixed Income Management announced today that Michael Lillard has been appointed Chief Investment Officer, responsible for overseeing all portfolio management and trading across the firm....

Week in Review.
February 18, 2008... Morgan Stanley Cuts 1,000 As Mortgages Diminish Morgan Stanley is eliminating 1,000 jobs as it scales back its residential mortgage operations in the U.S. and closes operations in the U.K. More than 100 other mortgage lenders have cut jobs...

SEC Nixes Fidelity's Proxy Request: Quest to Banish Companies Linked to Genocide Continues.
February 18, 2008... Three weeks after the Securities and Exchange Commission officially declined the no action request of Fidelity Investments of Boston, which had asked permission last November to exclude a shareholder-driven proposal from its mutual fund...

Globalization Squeezing Small Managers' Share.
February 25, 2008... MIAMI-Gary Palmer, chief executive of the Irish Funds Association, led a panel discussion at the National Investment Company Services Association's 26th Annual Conference & Expo here earlier this week, questioning the viability of small asset...

Funds Struggle with Complex Trading Strategies: Experts Caution Extra Care When Leveraging.
February 25, 2008... MIAMI - Asset managers have been looking to complex trading strategies such as 130/30 funds to create additional alpha (see related story, page 4), but experts stress that investors should be careful to fully understand these products, and use...

Brown Returns to MBIA as CEO, Chairman.
February 25, 2008... Some of the municipal bond market's biggest insurers are making significant changes in leadership and structure in efforts to address their current problems stemming from exposure to subprime mortgage-backed securities. Take Joseph "Jay"...

Franklin Joins Vietnam Private Equity Deal.(Company overview)
February 25, 2008... Franklin Resources of San Mateo, Calif., has agreed to acquire a 49% majority stake in Vietcombank Fund Management, the Hanoi, Vietnam-based private equity investment division of Vietcombank. Franklin, parent of Franklin Templeton, currently...

Performance Chasing Sacrificing Earnings.
February 25, 2008... MIAMI-As the burden of responsibility for retirement planning continues to shift toward the individual, investors should be cautious about "fast analysis" investment advice, a top financial executive told attendees at the NICSA conference here...

Legg Mason Denies Breaking the Buck.(Legg Mason Inc.)(Brief article)
February 25, 2008... U.S. money manager Legg Mason denied market rumors this week that one of its money market funds had fallen to below $1 in net asset value, commonly known as "breaking the buck." "Apparently there were rumors going around on e-mail this...

130/30 Strategies Set to Gain Traction: Interest From Hedge Funds on the Rise, But Jury Still Out on Actual Results.
February 25, 2008... Hedge funds are increasingly trying to attract assets from institutional investors, and in their quest to do so more funds are implementing 130/30 strategies, traditionally a long-only product, according to Investment Dealers' Digest, IMW's...

A Talk with Marek Fludzinski, Thales Fund Management.(Interview)
February 25, 2008... Some people have compared playing the stock market to horseracing, which would suggest that being a winner calls for either praying hard and often or studying the stock tables closely. Marek Fludzinski, founder and CEO of Thales Fund...

Executive Moves.(John Boneparth of Hall Capital Partners)(James K. Cornell of Prudential Retirement Services)(Marybeth Shay of BIDS Trading )
February 25, 2008... Hall Capital Names Boneparth as President John Boneparth has joined Hall Capital Partners as its new president. Boneparth, 58, previously worked as head of Putnam Global Institutional Management and also founded Corinthian Cove...

Immediate Annuities Face Behavioral Resistance.
February 25, 2008... The vast majority of retirees opt against voluntarily annuitizing retirement savings. So, insurers need to better educate consumers about immediate annuity benefits. Mental accounting keeps investors away from immediate annuities,...