Portfolio

State Street Corp. has agreed with Intesa Sanpaolo, a Milan banking company, to buy its securities services business for $1.87 billion in cash.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has announced the purchase of Portsmouth Financial Systems, a developer of modeling and analytics for structured credit transactions, so that it can give clients and investors more transparency in structured credit portfolios.

While emerging markets were only recently seen as an exotic investment, their promise for high returns, growing stability and increasingly influential impact on the rest of the globe has caused mutual fund and pension managers to reassess their importance, The Wall Street Journal reports in a story titled: “A Bigger Risk Than Emerging Markets: Staying Out.”

Mutual funds took in net sales for the 40th week in a row, bringing the sales streak to a full 10 months totaling $400 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Besides being one of the most famous and successful fund managers in the history of the mutual fund business, Bill Gross reached another historic milestone on Dec. 17, when the PIMCO Total Return Fund he runs topped $202.5 billion in assets—making it the biggest mutual fund ever.

Regardless of the fact that some of the biggest large-cap mutual funds lost an average of 40% in 2008, the asset managers running them took home hundreds of millions of dollars in fees apiece for each of the funds alone, Morningstar found through an analysis of fiscal year-end data.

Fidelity Investments has expanded the investment options on its Advisors 401(k) platform, in an effort to help its advisors boost their share of the advisor-sold market.

Carnegie Investment Bank AB, a Stockholm-based independent financial institution, has decided to let go of its asset management business and transfer ownership to investment companies Altor Equity Partners and Bure.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed securities fraud charges against an Austin, Texas investment advisor and two of his businesses alleging he conducted a “multi-million dollar scam” that used former professional football players to promote its offerings.

The Vanguard Group said it plans to introduce its first actively managed equity fund in five years, the Valley Forge, Pa., company announced Monday.