Practice

Three high-profile staff members at the Investment Company Institute have already left or are planning on leaving the mutual fund lobbying group in the near future, Defined Contributions & Savings Plan Alert reports.

If it isn’t enough that federal regulators are looking into whether the managers of two failed Bear Stearns hedge funds, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, misled investors into staying with the risky investments as they were tanking, they are now probing whether they inflated the funds’ returns and outlook to obtain loans from banks or prime custodians, BusinessWeek reports.

The Alternative Investment Management Association of the U.K. is about to launch a third set of codes for hedge funds-of-funds, on the heels of two other sets of best practices issued in the last 18 months.

Baby Boomers now comprise half to three-quarters of the clients of fee-based advisers and independent reps, a new wealth report found. Understanding the changing composition of the American consumer can go a long way toward establishing a healthy business model. However, if that model is focused solely on affluent households, the pickings are growing slimmer.

Hennion and Walch, a small New Jersey fund firm, is introducing ETFs into 401k plans by wrapping them in mutual funds. Chief Investment Officer Kevin Mahn said the SmartGrowth ETF Lipper Optimal Conservative Index, SmartGrowth ETF Lipper Optimal Moderate Index and SmartGrowth ETF Lipper Optimal Growth Index funds have made their way into 401(k) plans administered by leading companies, including Fidelity Investments.

Despite their tremendous growing popularity for their set-it-and-forget it convenience of automatically reallocating equity-to-fixed income ratios every year for 401(k) investors, target-date mutual funds may not be the best option for defined contribution plans.

ING Group NV of the Netherlands has completed its $900 million purchase of CitiStreet LLC from Citigroup Inc. and State Street Corp.

Statistics gathered in September 2007 by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) show that state and local government spends more on employee benefit programs than the private-sector.

On Wednesday morning, hedge fund fugitive Samuel Israel III surrendered himself to law enforcement officials in Southwick, Mass. Israel has been on the run since June 9, when he was set to report to prison in Ayres, Mass. His car was found that day on a Westchester County, N.Y., bridge with the words “suicide is painless” written on the hood.

After completing his service as chief information office on June 30, Corey Booth parted ways with the Securities and Exchange Commission in order to pursue a new career with Boston Consulting Group in New York.