Money Management Executive articles from June 2007

Money Management Executive archives from June 2007

Complaints Up, Collections Down at NASD.(National Association of Securities Dealers)(Brief article)
June 4, 2007... The NASD collected roughly half the amount of fines in 2006 compared to 2005, taking in $84.9 million in 2006, compared to $134.3 million in 2005, according to its annual report. The NASD issued another $75 million in fines in 2006, compared to...

YouTube Retirement Planning: 401(k) Education Hits MySpace.
June 4, 2007... Meet Jack. He's a single, 23-year-old, culinary school graduate who has recently landed a gig as a sous chef. A five-foot-11-inch Aires with an athletic build, Jack is interested in networking with others, but not having kids, according to his...

Regulation Still Funds' Bane of Existence: Decline in U.S. Competitiveness Also a Key Concern.(financial managers say regulatory compliance is their main concern)
June 4, 2007... Regulation continues to weigh on fund executives' minds as their number-one concern, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 400 senior finance executives at a forum last month. Regulators remain vigilant, said Dennis Gallant,...

Hedge Fund IPOs Swathed in Sunshine.
June 4, 2007... When hedge funds, long known for their exclusivity and secret-sauce approach to investing, go public, it takes a lot of planning and some cultural adjustment, too, according to a web-based presentation hosted by Deloitte & Touche last week. ...

Rule 22c-2 Offers Funds Great Marketing Prospects.
June 4, 2007... While the mutual fund industry has wrangled over, and largely resisted, the logistics and the estimated $617 million cost of complying with Rule 22c-2 for the past three years, funds should actually view the perceived regulatory onus in a new...

Week in Review.(retirement of baby boomers not to effect 401(k) plans' market)(MFS Investments Management forecasts low asset growth)(Chinese economy may not be much effected by stock market crashes)
June 4, 2007... Boomer Rollovers Not Expected to Hurt 401(k)s As the 77 million Baby Boomers begin to retire and cash out of their stock and mutual fund holdings, the market will not spiral into a bear market, according to a new study from the National...

Executive Moves.
June 4, 2007... CheckFree Names Keeling Senior Vice President CheckFree has hired Thom Keeling as senior vice president of the money manager business unit in its investment services division. With more than 25 years of experience, Keeling is now...

Asset Managers Outward Bound 31% Plan to Increase Outsourcing Over Next Two Years.
June 4, 2007... The investment management industry is always looking to make business more efficient, cut costs and comply with regulations. More firms are recognizing the key to helping with those issues might be outsourcing. Thirty-one percent of...

Franklin, Invesco Curry Favor with New India IT Centers.(Franklin/Templeton Investor Services and INVESCO MIM Inc.)
June 4, 2007... Both Franklin Templeton Investments of San Mateo, Calif., and Invesco of Atlanta have moved, or plan to move, some operations into the cosmopolitan Indian city of Hyderabad, the sixth-most populous city in India. This past January,...

Union Calls Mutual Funds Excessive Pay Enablers'.
June 11, 2007... The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees released a report Tuesday calling AllianceBernstein, Barclays Global Investors and AIM "pay enablers." In conjunction with The Corporate Library, AFSCME examined the 2006...

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble: Disclosure Seen as Antidote to Soft-Dollar Witch's Brew'.
June 11, 2007... Despite the hurly-burly set off by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox's request that Congress eliminate soft-dollar safe harbors, industry insiders argue that such a change will result in nothing but toil and trouble...

Website Offers Doctors' Insights: Investment Firms Can View Medical Discussions.(Website overview)
June 11, 2007... An innovative new website is bringing fund managers and their research teams to the table-the operating table. Sermo is giving buy-side firms a peek into the community website it runs for physicians, where they openly trade thoughts on...

T. Rowe Price, DTCC, Columbia Win Top Honors in SourceMedia Awards.
June 11, 2007... Columbia Funds, T. Rowe Price and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. take top honors in SourceMedia's 2007 Fund Operations Awards. Now in its fifth year, the awards program is sponsored by Money Management Executive and judged by a panel of...

Fund Awards Once Again Bring Innovation to Light.
June 11, 2007... It is an honor for Money Management Executive to sponsor SourceMedia's 2007 Fund Operations Awards, our fifth annual, and we would like to thank all those who entered their thoughtful submissions, as well as this year's panel of judges, who...

Week in Review.(Putnam Investments)
June 11, 2007... Two Former Putnam Execs Avoid Draconian' Charges Two former fund managers at Putnam Investments will pay $1.5 million to settle allegations they improperly traded mutual fund shares, the SEC and Massachusetts regulators announced Monday....

Executive Moves.
June 11, 2007... Smith Becomes Senior Advisor to Donohue at SEC Thomas R. Smith, Jr., a leading mutual fund attorney, has joined the Securities and Exchange Commission's division of investment management as senior advisor to Director Andrew J. Donohue. ...

Blog Watch.
June 11, 2007... Scamming U.S. Military: Garbage In, Garbage Out For many years, First Command Financial Services sold "garbage" mutual funds, with obscene upfront expenses and contracts committing investors to periods of 10 years or more, to U.S. military...

Minorities' Retirement Confidence Defies Reality.
June 11, 2007... Retirement confidence remains high among minorities, despite the fact that they are saving less than they were three years ago. Seventy percent of minority workers are confident they will live comfortably throughout their retirement years,...

Three Funds Launch Off Lipper's Target-Risk Indexes of ETFs.
June 11, 2007... Relying on the brand recognition of the Lipper name, the cache of exchange-traded funds, and the buzz around target-risk investing, Parsippany, N.J.-based Hennion & Walsh Asset Management is hoping to attract attention, flows and perhaps some...

Fixed-Income ETFs Expected to Gain Traction.
June 18, 2007... At the beginning of this year, Barclays Global Advisors was the only investment management company with a bond exchange-traded fund. Today, however, there are nearly two dozen fixed-income ETFs from the likes of State Street Global Advisors and...

Panel: Open Foreign Markets Carefully: More Competition Expected to Mean Better Trading.
June 18, 2007... The markets have gone global, and U.S. regulators ought to catch up if they want keep American exchanges competitive, allowing investors, particularly institutional, greater access, said participants during a roundtable discussion hosted by the...

Open Markets be Damned: Mutual Funds May Still Offer Greatest Global Equity Access.
June 18, 2007... Even if the Securities and Exchange Commission were to eliminate all restrictions on cross-border trading, retail investors' best bet for access to foreign markets might still be the good-old mutual fund, said panelists during a roundtable...

Calvert Offers Alternative Energy Fund.
June 18, 2007... NEW YORK-Global warming will have major economic, environmental and societal impacts if steps are not taken to help reduce the problem, and increasingly investors and the public are aware of this sobering fact. In response, Calvert Funds...

A Case for a Course On Financial Literacy.
June 18, 2007... A small news item last week on the launch of a financial literacy course in the Shelby County school district in Tennessee this fall got me thinking about a golden opportunity for individual mutual fund companies or, perhaps, the industry as a...

Week in Review.
June 18, 2007... Fidelity Reduces Profit Goals for Adviser Services Fidelity Investments Chairman Edward "Ned" Johnson has told the firm's adviser services division to reduce its profit margin targets so that the company can use the money to improve its...

Executive Moves.
June 18, 2007... Zader Becomes Chief Exec Of UMB Fund Services John Zader has been named chief executive officer of UMB Fund Services, taking the position only six months after joining the firm as chief operating officer. "Since joining UMB, John has...

Unification, Technology Better Position European Marts.
June 18, 2007... As the U.S. market continues to lose some of its luster, more investors are looking to Europe for opportunities. This is occurring as the European market is going through economic unification, technology upgrades and better transparency. ...

IXIS to Undergo More Evolutionary Changes.(IXIS Asset Management Distributors, John Pelletier)(Interview)
June 18, 2007... Initiatives at IXIS Asset Management Advisors of Boston will not be slowing down this summer. The firm, a manager of managers with 15 affiliates in its stable, will be cutting several of its mutual funds' management fees, putting its B Share...

SEC Votes to Include Funds in XBRL Pilot Tests.
June 25, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission voted on Wednesday to allow mutual funds to voluntarily join the 40 publicly traded companies currently submitting data to the SEC in interactive extensible business reporting language (XBRL). Fund...

SEC Demurs, Yet Again, on 12b-1 Fees: Vows to Propose Something,' But Offers Little Consensus.
June 25, 2007... After a day's worth of discussion among industry executives, regulators, academics and investor advocates about the utility and future of 12b-1 fees, one theme emerged: something should be done. What that should be is a little more...

ETFs: Not Just a 401(k) Option, a Duty: Industry Insiders Tout Transparency, Cost.
June 25, 2007... NEW YORK-Including exchange-traded funds in defined contribution platforms isn't just a good idea for plan sponsors, it's darn close to a fiduciary duty, said panelists at a recent ETF summit held here. Citing low fees, an array of market...

For 401(k)s, Too Safe Can Sometimes Lead to Sorry.
June 25, 2007... Score one for the mutual fund industry. It isn't every day that two influential consumer groups, the Consumer Federation of America and Fund Democracy, rally to the industry's support. But that's precisely what happened last Monday when...

Week in Review.(Securities and Exchange Commission accused J.B. Oxford's Scott G. Monson)(Securities and Exchange Commission increases mutual fund fees)(Hamilton Alan Bird, David Edward Newton and Douglas Alan Scott accused for civil lawsuits)
June 25, 2007... SEC Judge Dismisses Late-Trading Case Against Former J.B. Oxford Lawyer A Securities and Exchange Commission administrative law judge has dismissed charges against Scott G. Monson, the former general counsel for J.B. Oxford, for allegedly...

Executive Moves.(American Century Investments Inc. appointed Stephen J. Lurito )(John Hancock Funds Inc. appointed John G. Vrysen and Charles A. Rizzo )(Integrity Mutual Funds Inc. appointed Mark Kamies )
June 25, 2007... American Century Names Lurito Growth Equity CIO American Century Investments has named Stephen J. Lurito chief investment officer for U.S. growth equity, overseeing 40 investment professionals managing 28 strategies and $30 billion in...

The Great UMA Outsourcing Debate.
June 25, 2007... NEW YORK-As unified managed accounts become more well known among investors and financial advisers, firms creating them are faced with questions of what functions to outsource, along with related technology issues and compliance rules,...

Private Equity Firm Acquires Nuveen Investments.
June 25, 2007... Nuveen Investments of Chicago announced its agreement last Wednesday to privatize its firm through the sale of the firm to private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, also of Chicago, in an all-cash deal valued at $5.75 billion and the...

Small Fund Firms Grapple for Research.
June 25, 2007... NEW YORK-Changes to how small and mid-tier asset managers obtain research may be coming, as soft dollars continue to be scrutinized and execution costs are being unbundled, according to panelists at an AQ conference, "Navigating the Research...