Money Management Executive articles from July 2007

Money Management Executive archives from July 2007

Hancock Revenue-Sharing Lawsuit Settled for $21.3 M.
July 2, 2007... John Hancock has settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission on charges that it failed to disclose $14.8 million in revenue-sharing agreements with 55 brokerages between 2001 and 2004. In exchange for the payments, the brokerages...

SEC Testifies on U.S. Competitiveness: Congress Concerned Regulations Disadvantaging Markets.
July 2, 2007... Increased international competition, proxy votes and Sarbanes-Oxley were a few of the issues discussed during the House Financial Services Committee's review last week of the Securities and Exchange Commission's effectiveness in investor...

ETF Explosion? Advisers Say it Ain't So: But Seed Money Harder to Harvest.
July 2, 2007... NEW YORK-Despite the near dizzying deluge of exchange-traded fund listings, investment advisers say they still want more. Yet while their appetite for more tactical, more specialized splices of indexes seems insatiable, experts warn that...

SMAs: Not Just For Wirehouses.(separate managed accounts and services and management of investment advisers)
July 2, 2007... Looking at the cultural chasm between independent and wirehouse broker/dealers, the fast-growing fee-based separately managed account business seems, to date, to have stayed on the wirehouse side of the divide. But Curian Capital is trying...

Janus Said to be Finally Rising Out of Purgatory'.
July 2, 2007... Although there have been a smattering of articles about a reformation at Janus Capital appearing over the past few months, none has been as colorful or as compelling as one last week in Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Harking back to the...

Week in Review.
July 2, 2007... Former Fidelity Lawyer Sues Firm Over Policies David van Duyn, a former lawyer in Fidelity Investments' risk oversight and enterprise compliance unit, has sued the company, charging it failed to comply with anti-money laundering laws,...

Executive Moves.
July 2, 2007... Fidelity Investments Adds 10 Staffers to RIA Group Fidelity Investments has expanded the sales and relationship management team at its registered investment advisor group with the hiring of 10 additional staffers, bringing the total number...

Offshoring Part II: Maximizing Operations.
July 2, 2007... Offshoring functions save companies millions of dollars a year, and as the practice matures, financial institutions are moving to the next stage of optimizing their offshoring operations, according to Deloitte & Touche's fourth "Global...

Illinois Lawsuit Challenges 529 Plan Tax Incentives.
July 2, 2007... An intended class-action lawsuit filed in Illinois in mid-May has the potential to challenge how all state Treasury offices apply tax deductions for contributions to in-state, versus out-of-state, 529 college savings plans. At the center...

Federal Court Freezes $288 Million of Assets of Chicago Hedge Fund.
July 9, 2007... Lake Shore Asset Management, a Chicago-based hedge fund, had $288 million of its assets frozen by a federal court last week, after regulators stated it overstated its holdings, according to Bloomberg News. Lake Shore is run by Laurence...

The Year Of The SMA: Standardization Could Result in Faster Asset Growth.(separately managed accounts)
July 9, 2007... NEW YORK-Managed accounts have been steadily gaining traction, but 2007 may be the year they truly get unleashed, according to panelists at a recent conference here. The New York-based Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. later this year will...

For Investors, It's All About Performance.
July 9, 2007... Just as in real estate it's all about location, location, location, for mutual funds, it's performance, performance, performance. The key driver to mutual fund companies providing customer satisfaction is investment performance, and...

SMAs Offer Retirement Auto-Pilot.(separately managed accounts)
July 9, 2007... NEW YORK-Without a good financial plan, retirement can be anything but relaxing. In fact, even for the affluent investor, adjusting to what should be one's leisure years takes some jarring realizations, said speakers at a recent presentation...

Women's Retirement Guide Raises Startling Issues.
July 9, 2007... A retirement guide for women that the Heinz Family Philanthropies and the Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement issued last week brought to light some startling facts. Two-thirds of working women earn less than $30,000 a year, most...

Week in Review.(Company overview)
July 9, 2007... Brokers Settle With NASD Over Improper Fund Sales The NASD has settled with four brokerages over improper mutual fund sales. Combined, they are paying fines of $1.2 million. For improper sales of Class B shares, MML Investors Services...

Executive Moves.
July 9, 2007... Morningstar Taps Cooley As Chief Financial Officer Morningstar has appointed Scott Cooley chief financial officer, effective Aug. 10, replacing Martha Dustin Boudos, who will remain with the firm in a new role, which has yet to be...

Spain First EU Country to Open Hedge Funds to Masses.
July 9, 2007... U.S. retail investors have had a growing appetite for hedge funds, and now European investors will get the chance to test the waters in these high-return, sometimes risky investments, as Spain is the first European country to introduce retail...

New Mutual Fund Specializes in Private Equity.
July 9, 2007... A new, unconventional mutual fund debuted last week that will invest in the scorching-hot private equity market. The Listed Private Equity Plus Fund launched after a four-week initial subscription period. The new niche mutual fund will...

CFP Board Raises Planners' Ethical Standards.
July 16, 2007... 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...

Ads Look Good, But Do They Hit Home?: Boomers Say High-Price Campaigns Miss The Mark.
July 16, 2007... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-Alice Smith is a Power Boomer. A 53-year-old Medicare specialist with a graduate degree, Smith has amassed a stash of cash for retirement, and has a husband with his own account. When it comes time for the Smiths to roll...

Health Savings Accounts Offer Hope: But Are Companies Buying?
July 16, 2007... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-Until now, plan providers have been slow to roll out Heath Savings Accounts (HSAs), perhaps because of murky rules, low maximum contribution levels and a seemingly limited business opportunity. But the opportunity is...

House Treads Lightly on Hedge Funds: Backs Off Idea of Regulation, Registration.
July 16, 2007... Increased disclosure and transparency of hedge funds, and investors who have pension funds invested in them, were at the forefront of a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week on whether hedge funds pose a systemic risk to the...

Dept. of Labor to Assist China in Setting up 401(k)s.
July 16, 2007... Recently, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued a report debunking the theory that as the 77 million Baby Boomers begin to turn 65 in 2011 and cash out of their stock and bond holdings, the markets will spiral into a bear market. The...

Haidar Hedge Fund Group To Pay $4.58 Million Fine.
July 16, 2007... Hedge fund companies Haidar Capital Management and Haidar Capital Advisors, along with their owner, Said Haidar, have settled mutual fund trading charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission with a fine of $4.58 million. Haidar and his...

PFPC's Gandolfo to Chair Council On Health Savings.
July 16, 2007... James S. Gandolfo, the senior director and vice president in charge of the health savings accounts business at PFPC, a unit of PNC Financial Services Group, has been elected chairman of the American Bankers Association HSA Council. ...

M&As, Earnings Focus Boost Funds in Second Quarter.(Financial report)
July 16, 2007... Second quarter's market performance was impressive due to record mergers and acquisitions, and investors focusing on corporate earnings and not worrying about signs of future inflation or a slowing economy, according to Lipper's second quarter...

Why Fund Firms Need a Chief Distribution Officer Now.
July 16, 2007... In his 2004 biography of Alexander Hamilton, author Ron Chernow noted that a large part of Hamilton's genius was to erect structures virtually assuring that the nation would grow up with a strong centralized government. As the primary...

Vanguard, State Street Aim For Bigger Share of ETFs.(Brief article)
July 23, 2007... Although Barclays Global Investors runs $301 billion in exchange-traded fund money through 137 funds- commanding a 60% share of the $500 billion ETF market-Vanguard and State Street are launching new products and marketing campaigns to catch...

SOX Continues to Irk Corporate Execs: Take Issue With Survey Finding Positive Impact.
July 23, 2007... Despite a recent survey that found 83% of executives believe that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act has had a positive impact on their company, industry experts do not agree. Reston, Va.-based Approva Corp., which supplies control monitoring and...

130/30 Strategies Invade Fund Industry.
July 23, 2007... The first of a new wave of 130/30 long/short mutual funds are hitting the mainstream investment landscape. They are taking their cue from the institutional arena where 130/30 strategies have been a scorching hot commodity and are rolling out to...

Banks Well-Positioned for Rollovers: Retail Banks Waking Up to Retirement Opportunities.
July 23, 2007... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-In the race to capture rollover retirement assets, retail banks have been somewhat of a sleeping giant. But banks, which benefit from sheer scale, brand recognition and a brick-and-mortar presence in communities across the...

AIM Investments Revamps Proxy Voting Guidelines.
July 23, 2007... We've got to hand it to the board of directors at AIM Investments for acting responsibly and in direct response to a profound change in public sentiment. Reacting to accusations by a labor group that it is one of the most egregious fund...

Week in Review.
July 23, 2007... Securities America Fined For Directed Brokerage The NASD has fined Securities America $375,000 for improperly sharing $280,000 in directed-brokerage commissions, plus other payments, with former broker Michael Bullock, a 16-year veteran of...

Executive Moves.
July 23, 2007... Fidelity Selects Lawson As FMR Corp. President Fidelity Investments has named Rodger A. Lawson, a longtime executive with Prudential Financial, president of the firm's holding company, FMR Corp. Up until the spring, when he stepped...

The Way to a Retiree's Heart is His Adviser: Fund Firms Partner With Broker/Dealers to Train Advisers.
July 23, 2007... CAMBRIDGE, Mass.-Retirees and their broker/dealers have one thing in common: they both want advice. Fund companies have responded by creating programs to help broker/dealers and their advisers, who are accustomed to helping their clients...

Mass-Affluent Largely Self-Directed, Web-Oriented.(Survey)
July 23, 2007... As firms increasingly start to focus on mass-affluent investors, they need to understand their behavior to effectively capture their assets, and this group is highly independent, unlikely to rely on a financial adviser and dependent on the Web,...

Smith Barney to Pay $50M In Timing Settlement.
July 30, 2007... Citigroup's Smith Barney division has agreed to pay $50 million to settle market-timing charges by the New York Stock Exchange and New Jersey regulators. Of the $50 million total, $40 million will go to investors who were harmed by the...

New Proxy Rule Could Affect SRIs: SEC Explores Changes in Directors' Elections.
July 30, 2007... For decades, the question of investor access to company proxies has been a Pandora's box for the Securities and Exchange Commission, chock-full of competing interests and opinions from the investment community. Last week, the regulators'...

More 401(k)s to Adopt Collective Trusts: CITs Could Chip Away at Mutual Funds' Market Share.
July 30, 2007... Bank and trust-controlled collective investment trusts (CITs) may give retail mutual fund companies a run for their money in 401(k) and other defined contribution plans. Although CITs, also referred to as collective funds or commingled...

Auto Enroll Boosting Retirees' Outlook; But Only 2% of 401(k) Participants Automatically Enrolled.
July 30, 2007... Automatic 401(k) enrollment programs are making headway among corporations across America and are expected to gain increasing traction, helping more investors be better prepared for retirement, according to Fidelity Investments. Fidelity's...

Execs Glee in Steamroller' Schadenfreude.
July 30, 2007... While we will certainly give credit to Eliot "The Steamroller" Spitzer for taking on illicit trading and sales activities in the mutual fund industry while he was New York attorney general, we wondered why, when he was running for governor, he...

Week in Review.
July 30, 2007... The Hartford Fined $115M In Rigging, Timing Case The Hartford Financial Services Group reached a $115 million settlement with regulators in Connecticut, New York and Illinois over charges it conspired with March & McLennan to submit...

Blog Watch.
July 30, 2007... Gisele Bundchen Index Struts its Stuff Past Dow Supermodel Gisele Bundchen evidently has justification for the $33 million she earned last year. The stocks of companies she promotes have had a good 2007 so far, according to stockerblog.com,...

Millennials: The Fund Industry's Next Great Hope.
July 30, 2007... While the Millennial generation, those born between 1982 and 2000, are still a young population, eventually they will grow up to become the next generation of mass-affluent investors, following the current Baby Boomers. Millennials have...

Executive Moves.(briefs)(ICON Advisors)
July 30, 2007... FRC Promotes Fleites to Director of Retirement Luis Fleites has been promoted at Financial Research Corp. from research partner to vice president, director of retirement markets. In this position, he is responsible for promoting FRC's...