Money Management Executive articles from March 2004

Money Management Executive archives from March 2004

Brinker Cuts SMA Fees From 50 BPS Down to 20.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Brinker Capital, one of the most preeminent providers of separately managed accounts, announced yesterday that it has broadened its "Destination" lineup to include passive large-core and real estate, and that it has reduced its fees from 50...

State Street Fined For Timing Breakdown: State Street Research's Fine Could Be First of Many.
March 1, 2004... Regulators are not just targeting those in cahoots with market timers. Now, any firm that failed to do enough to keep the wolves out of the pen is fair game. Negligence is no excuse for the law, according to the NASD, which has just fined...

Unsung' IT Execs Prep for More Critical Role: NICSA Attendees Discuss New Regulatory Challenges.(National Investment Company Service Association)
March 1, 2004... MIAMI - In every business, you'll find a group of people whose hard work often goes unrewarded or overlooked. Within the mutual fund industry, operations personnel are the unsung heroes whose behind-the-scenes toil enables advisors to deliver...

Execs Take Case to Court of Public Opinion.
March 1, 2004... The SEC's top regulators have chastised mutual funds. State regulators have fired harsh salvos at them. And to put it quite mildly, the national press has gone to town. Now, fund company executives whose firms have been implicated in the...

Show Me the Money'.
March 1, 2004... First, the good news: Today's job seekers are pretty clear about why they would choose one job over another. In the most recent poll published on my Web site, www.dmrcareers.com, job seekers had no trouble deciding what matters most. Hands...

Putnam Exec Wins Seat as Director of Mass. Pension.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Michael Travaglini, a Putnam Investments executive who has also served as head of Boston's retirement fund operation, has been selected as the new director of Massachusetts' state pension fund, a $32 billion fund which has been looking for a...

Fidelity COO Defends 12b-1s, Withholding Pay.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Fidelity COO Robert Reynolds called 12b-1 fees "fair" and necessary in order to cover distribution costs. He made the remarks last week at Reuters Fund Summit in Boston. "Saying that 12b-1 fees are bad and should be done away with is an...

CIBC to Invest $37 Million In Corporate Governance.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce announced last Monday that it would pour $37 million to reform and educate employees on corporate governance. The funding is, in part, forced by a December settlement with federal regulators stemming from its...

Executive Moves.
March 1, 2004... T. Rowe Price Hires Moreland As New Chief Financial Officer T. Rowe Price has hired Kenneth V. Moreland to be its chief financial officer. Moreland, 47, succeeds Cristina Wasiak, 50, who stepped down as chief financial officer at the...

SEC Seeks to Ban Columbia From Managing Funds.
March 1, 2004... Regulators have gone straight for the throat of FleetBoston, charging two of the company's Columbia units with orchestrating a "massive" market timing scheme and seeking to enjoin Columbia Advisors from serving as advisor to its own mutual...

Principal - The Understated, Quiet 401(k) Provider.(Larry Zimpleman, president Principal Financial Group)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... It's not every day one encounters a company that's content to be No. 2. But that's exactly the business plan of Principal Retirement & Investor Services. While Principal serves three million investors in 40,000 employer plans, most of those...

Calif. Bank Legacy Adds Curian Managed Accounts.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Curian Capital announced last Wednesday that Legacy Bank, La Jolla, Calif., has added Curian's managed account program to its menu of investment products. Legacy Bank is a locally owned and managed financial institution that focuses on private...

NASD Fines AXA forNAV Transfer Charges.
March 8, 2004... The National Association of Securities Dealers has slapped its first fine on a brokerage firm for violating NAV transfer program procedures. AXA Advisors, the New York-based broker/dealer and investment advisor arm of French financial...

Columbia's T&T' Could be in Hot Water: Ex-Putnam's Tambone, Tasiopoulos No Strangers to Controversy.
March 8, 2004... Putnam Investments took the initial hit from the rash of sales and marketing executives defecting to Liberty Financial in the late 1990s, but it is Columbia, which since consumed Liberty, that is now poised to take a beating from the...

Smith Barney Sees Benefits, Challenges to New Unified Managed Accounts Platform.
March 8, 2004... Smith Barney Consulting Group, New York, debuted Integrated Investment Services, an innovative, proprietary unified managed account platform last October that allows captive Smith Barney financial consultants to see the bigger picture. The...

Access Data Drills Down to Core Compliance.
March 8, 2004... MIAMI - When assessing the problems plaguing the mutual fund industry, you'll hear plenty of chatter about imposing stiffer penalties and introducing more stringent regulation. Certainly, these are effective deterrents for bad behavior, but...

Jan. Flows of $44 Billion 3rd-Largest in Fund History.(Brief Article)
March 8, 2004... Equity mutual fund assets posted a $43.76 billion inflow in January, up from the $14.18 billion inflow in December, according to the Investment Company Institute's most recent survey of the fund industry. That marks the largest monthly...

Bill Would Strengthen SEC Powers to Detect Fraud.(Brief Article)
March 8, 2004... The House Financial Services Committee passed The Securities Fraud Deterrence and Investor Restitution Act (H.R. 2179), which would permit the SEC to more easily collect fines and funds from those who have broken the law. It would also increase...

Rydex Launches 11 Funds.(Brief Article)
March 8, 2004... Rydex Investments has just launched 11 new funds spanning market capitalizations and investment styles, ranging from small-to large-cap, value to growth. In addition, Rydex is offering two funds that will seek the inverse performance of...

Executive Moves.
March 8, 2004... Browchuk Named Head of Putnam DC Servicing Unit Putnam Investments has named Brett Browchuk head of its defined contributions servicing unit. Browchuk, currently the head of operations services and investment operations, will serve in the...

Fidelity Big Rallies the Troops at NICSA: Ellyn McColgan Talks Turkey About Boomer Retirement.(National Investment Company Service Association )
March 8, 2004... MIAMI - With Baby Boomers turning age 50 at a rate of 12,000 a day, meeting the needs of mutual fund investors has forced investment advisors to redefine retirement. That's one person every eight seconds for those scoring at home. This is...

Mutual Funds Cut Fees - Some Voluntarily, Some Not: As Spitzer Puts Pressure on Fees, Other Funds Should Take the Lead.
March 8, 2004... The number of mutual funds lowering fund-management fees is proliferating, and as the mutual fund scandal continues to unfold, this trend should spread, according to industry analysts. Already, fund companies that have not been implicated...

Stevens Named ICI Pres; Will Take Helm in June.
March 15, 2004... The mutual fund trade association, which has faced unrivaled challenges in the past six months, has brought in a familiar face as its new head. Paul Schott Stevens, one-time general counsel for the Investment Company Institute and currently a...

SEC Raises Bar, Pledges More Minisweeps' Firms Warned: Don't Destroy Documents'.
March 15, 2004... WASHINGTON - Flexing their muscles, Securities and Exchange Commission officials from around the nation told a group of lawyers here that while cooperation with regulators is essential, the bar has been raised in terms of penalties and no firm...

Some Mutual Funds Thrive on High Turnover.
March 15, 2004... The fund industry scandal has cast market timing, and frequent trading as bad news for mutual fund investors. But when the "timers" are actually fund portfolio managers whose dizzying spinning in and out of securities is eagerly embraced as a...

Pure-Play ETFs Square Off Against VIPERs.
March 15, 2004... With exchange-traded funds rapidly becoming more mainstream investment vehicles, a debate has emerged over how to maximize their tax-efficiency capabilities. Fund investors looking for a low-cost, tax-efficient alternative to mutual funds have...

Big Firms Could Benefit From Stricter Rules: Fitch.(Brief Article)
March 15, 2004... As legislators and regulators prepare to adopt more stringent regulation governing the mutual fund industry, some investment advisors will benefit from such rule changes while others will be harmed, according to Fitch Ratings. "Firms with...

News Flash- New Barclay's ETFs Based On Morningstar Ratings.(Brief Article)
March 15, 2004... Barclay's Global Investors (BGI) is launching nine new exchange-traded funds based on the Morningstar style box methodology, a move that will bolster its already dominant position in the ETF space. Barclay's owns more than 65% of the market...

Buffet Blasts Independents' Fuzzy Logic on Boards.(Brief Article)
March 15, 2004... Warren Buffet, in his widely anticipated annual to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, blasts fund companies that cheated millions of investors through market timing and late trading, as well as directors who fell short of their duties. Funds...

MFS Creates Reg. Head, Names New Chief Counsel.(MFS Investment Management )(Brief Article)
March 15, 2004... MFS Investment Management has hired a new chief counsel and a compliance officer to oversee corporate governance and compliance procedures in the wake of its $350 million settlement with regulators last month. The Boston-based fund manager...

Janus Adds Two Outsiders' To its Board of Directors.(Janus Capital Group Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 15, 2004... Janus Capital Group appointed two independent directors to its board. To make room on the board, Helen Young Hayes, whose term expires in May, will step down, the company said. She was a managing director of investments and managed Janus'...

Mazzarella Joins Siebert Board, Audit Committee.(Brief Article)
March 15, 2004... Siebert Financial said Robert P. Mazzarella has been elected to its board and as an independent member of its audit committee. Mazzarella, retired president of Fidelity Brokerage Services, officially took control of the posts on the first of...

Proponents Fight Back to Defend Soft Dollars, Directed Brokerage.
March 15, 2004... NEW YORK - Soft dollars and directed brokerage are appalling and must be eliminated. That's the tune we've been hearing almost uninterrupted for the last several months as regulators and lawmakers have unleashed the hounds on the fund industry....

To Follow the Money, Follow the Population.
March 15, 2004... When you're looking for growth, industries with favorable demographics can make that growth easier. That doesn't mean we at Sterling Advisors won't own stocks that are in industries with more challenging demographics, but we think having a good...

SEC Slaps Bank of America With $10 Million Fine: Firm Failed to Furnish Records in Trading Probe.
March 15, 2004... Bank of America, the nation's third-largest bank, was slapped with a record $10 million fine last week for failing to comply with regulators' repeated requests for information during their probe of improper trading practices. The Securities and...

MFS to Buck Up for Stock Research: Soft-Dollar Ban Sets Precedent for Major Fund Shops.
March 22, 2004... Soft-dollar advocates are going to have a harder time pleading their case. That's because tainted fund manager MFS Investments announced last week it would put an end to soft-dollar commission payments, representing a major turn of the...

8 Nations Directors Out in BoA Settlement: Regulators Up Ante, Go After Fiduciaries.
March 22, 2004... Board members beware. In addition to racking up a gargantuan $675 million settlement with Bank of America and FleetBoston Financial last week, regulators made it clear boards are fair game, as it ousted eight of the 10 directors of the...

Janus Bets on Black to Boost Business.(Gary Black, chief investment officer in Janus Capital Group Inc.)
March 22, 2004... The search is over. Embattled fund manager Janus Capital Group last week named Gary Black, chief investment officer for Goldman Sachs Asset Management's global equity business, its new president and chief investment officer. Black's...

Unsung IT Heroes, Claim Your Fame!(Investment management)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Without their massive operations labyrinth and powerful technology engines, the mutual fund and separately managed account industries would not be $8 trillion retail behemoths they are today. It's information technology that ensures...

Three Mutuals.com Execs Face Criminal Charges.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... The U.S. Attorney's office has filed criminal charges against three Mutuals.com executives, charging them with helping hedge funds deceive mutual fund companies by hiding their market-timing activities in separate accounts. Mutuals.com Chief...

SEC Forms 529 Task Force.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... The SEC has formed a special committee to help determine whether 529 college savings plans offered through mutual fund companies and brokerage firms are overcharging investors. In a letter to Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH), SEC Chairman William...

Calpers Drafts Ethics Code For Investment Managers.(California. Public Employees' Retirement System)(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... Calpers, the nation's largest pension fund with $167 billion in assets, last week adopted a code of ethics for its outside money managers and consultants. The code of ethics stipulates that outside managers and consultants must conduct a...

Real Estate, Dynamic Capital & Value Round Out Fidelity VIP.(Variable Insurance Product)
March 22, 2004... Fidelity has injected extra flexibility and personalization into its variable annuities, and is trying to sell its customers on virtually nonexistent tax penalties. By adding three new funds - a real estate, a dynamic capital appreciation...

Small Funds Boost Enterprisers' Reserves.
March 22, 2004... There is no doubt that a rise in regulation has increased costs for mutual funds in the past few years - to the point of pain for many small, independent fund companies. But are things bad enough to prompt these companies to give away their...

Janus Tries an About-Face: The Poster Boy for the Bubble and the Painful Crash is Getting a Makeover.(Janus Capital Group Inc.)
March 22, 2004... If advisers needed a go-go growth fund in the late 1990s, they probably turned to Janus Capital Group. Yet the aggressive strategy that Janus used to manage most of its funds ultimately backfired. After the tech bubble burst, the Janus name...

AIMR Reluctant to Ease Standards for SMAs.(Association for Investment Management and Research )(separately managed account)
March 22, 2004... The standoff between SMAs and AIMR is sort of like Groucho Marx' famous quote that if it was a club that would let him in, he wouldn't want to join it. AllianceBernstein, Lord, Abbett, Prudential Investments and a number of other large...

Quiet Company' About to Pump Up the Volume.
March 22, 2004... The "quiet company" is about to make a little more noise in the financial services market. Northwestern Mutual, which has touted itself as a subdued firm for decades, has launched a national marketing campaign to induce consumers to "have...

Firms Expected to Resist Pressure to Lower Fees.
March 22, 2004... Will the growing number of settlements between disgraced fund companies and regulators put pressure on other fund advisors to slash fees, too? MFS, Putnam Investments, BoA and Alliance, the latter with a staggering 20% reduction over five years...

Fire Your Index.(Stock price indexes)
March 22, 2004... Too many investment advisors and their partners rely on market indexes as the way to judge performance for clients. The shift to a scenario approach may be the best thing you can do. Like most "learning" experiences, the bear market that...

Flawed Benchmarks Hurt Portfolio Managers' Performance.
March 22, 2004... Managers should not benchmark the performance of their growth and value portfolios to the Standard & Poor's or Barra growth and value indexes, a recent study in the Journal of Investment Consulting maintains. The reason? The benchmarks are...

The Soft' 4 p.m. Brick Wall': A Reality Check on Late Trading'.(Securities law)
March 22, 2004... In his seminal book "The Right Stuff," Tom Wolfe wrote of those engineers and test pilots who believed in the 1940s that the sound barrier was a "brick wall" that would cause anyone who attempted to break it to "augur in" and "buy the farm."...

SEC's Gabinet Tackles Pilgrim Baxter Case.
March 22, 2004... In rapid succession, several market-timing mutual fund cases have come and gone since Gary Pilgrim and Harold Baxter and the Wayne Pa.-based firm that bears their name, Pilgrim Baxter & Associates, were charged with fraud and skirting fiduciary...

Pilgrim Baxter Case History.(Brief Article)
March 22, 2004... The SEC charged Gary Pilgrim and Harold Baxter, as well as Pilgrim Baxter & Associates, with "fraud and breach of fiduciary duty" in connection with a market-timing scheme at the PBHG funds, back in mid-November. Pilgrim, then-president,...

Tapping the Vast New 529 Market at the Grassroots Level.
March 22, 2004... For Ben Franklin, nothing was certain but death and taxes. While those certainties remain, parents of college-bound teenagers now face another sure thing: the staggering and ever-increasing cost of paying for higher education. Scholarships...

At Deadline.
March 29, 2004... Institutional SMA Services To Reach Northern Masses Institutional managed account provider GlobalBridge has agreed with Northern Trust Co. to offer its products to a network of trust companies that are correspondents of the Chicago banking...

Industry Bigs Wrestle Ways to Fix Fund Biz: Roye Asserts Funds Are Skirting Blame for Scandal.
March 29, 2004... PALM DESERT, Calif. - A culture of compliance and dedication to long-time shareholders has to be priority No. 1 for mutual funds. That was the consensus of a number of high-profile industry professionals at the annual Investment Company...

State Regulatory Slip-ups Cause Pain.
March 29, 2004... Tripping over Federal securities regulations can bring a mutual fund advisor to its knees. But running afoul of state securities divisions can also be painful. American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo., recently found itself mired...

February Doesn't Make Funds Shiver.
March 29, 2004... After near-record highs set by equity funds in January, not unexpectedly, February couldn't live up to the same expectations, according to a monthly report from Lipper. But it was a brave attempt. Equity mutual funds experienced respectable...

AIM to Disclose Money Directed at Brokerages.(Brief Article)
March 29, 2004... AIM Investments has stepped up efforts to publicly disclose its directed-brokerage activities and allocation of marketing fees. Newly drafted prospectus supplements filed with the SEC clearly outline the fund provider's intent to reveal...

Putnam Sets Limit on Perks.(Putnam Investments)(Brief Article)
March 29, 2004... Putnam Investments is cracking down on the perks brokers use to entice fund managers and other executives to give them their business. Beginning April 1, Putnam's 5,000 employees will not be allowed to accept perks with values of more than...

Santos Brings Experience To HFR as Chief Marketer.(HFR Asset Management )(Brief Article)
March 29, 2004... Hedge fund firm HFR Asset Management has created the position of chief marketing officer and filled it with Wilson "Bill" Santos, a 20-year industry veteran who has held management positions at such high-profile firms as Montgomery Asset...

Lord Abbett Keeps On Adding to Sales Group.(Brief Article)
March 29, 2004... Saying it is still not even close to being finished in its national sales force expansion, Lord Abbett & Co. hired S. Chris Fiacco to its sales group. Before agreeing to join Jersey City, N.J.-based Lord Abbett, Fiacco worked as a regional...

TIAA-CREF Promotes Company Veteran to CIO.(Brief Article)
March 29, 2004... Scott C. Evans, executive vice president of CREF Investments since 1997, has been named chief investment officer of parent company TIAA-CREF, the No. 1 higher education and research employee retirement system in the United States. Evans...

Man Investments Hires Two to Build U.S. Sales.(Brief Article)
March 29, 2004... To help with its U.S. development and support operations, Man Investments has announced the hiring of Alan F. Delcorse and Russell C. Smith as vice presidents of intermediary sales. The two will work out of Chicago. Man Investments, the U.S....

American Century's Move Into Loads.(Interview)
March 29, 2004... American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo., is breaking out of its previous mold. With approximately $90 billion in assets under management, American Century spent much of 2003 setting the groundwork for its reemergence as a bigger and...

Ad Spending Drops 13% Amid Scandal.
March 29, 2004... Even the throes of the fund scandal cannot keep some firms from bragging about themselves. After first pledging to restore its reputation in full-page placements in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, a mere 11 days after the...