Money Management Executive Latest News

As the hedge fund industry becomes increasingly crowded—the number of hedge funds has doubled over the past five years to 8,000—hedge fund managers are taking on more risk and some funds may turn to fraud, sister publication Securities Industry News reports.

MFS Investment Management has opened a new alternative investments subsidiary that will provide products specifically geared for institutional clients as well as seed and expansion capital for hedge funds. MFS will offer operational and systems support.

Just before the New York Stock Exchange went public in 2005, 1,366 brokers held seats, and now that’s down to only about 800, The New York Times reports. And in the next several weeks, the NYSE plans to close two trading rooms, reducing the trading floor to half the size its was at its peak in the 1990s.

Of the 14 regulations that came out of the mutual fund trading scandal, the two most important were the creation of a chief compliance officer and the requirement that three-quarters of a fund's board of directors, including its chairman, be independent.

Bank of America has hired a Fidelity Investments executive to run its business retirement solutions unit.

A recent survey of women’s attitude toward finance by the cable television network Oxygen, “Girls Just Want to Have Funds,” found that 44% of women think that financial professionals don’t offer them enough respect. And 94% of the 2,100 women surveyed said that financial services advertisements are not targeted at women and are not fund to watch, and of the few ads that are aimed at women, one-quarter indicated the ads “talk down” to them. Another 83% said they cannot relate to financial advertisements.

Managers of global funds believe profits of companies in emerging markets will deteriorate in the next year, according to a Merrill Lynch survey conducted this month, Daily News & Analysis reports.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr has snagged Randall Lee, the former Los Angeles regional director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, as the lead partner for its first office in Los Angeles, The Recorder reports.

John M. Trice, market president of Frost National Bank in Corpus Christi, Texas, lays out a number steps banks can take to reach Baby Boomers in this month’s issue of ABA Banking Journal that is sound advice for mutual fund companies looking to win their business, as well.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a cease-and-desist against brokerage Pritchard Capital and three of its executives for allegedly having allowed some of its mutual fund customers to late trade mutual funds between 2001 and 2003. The three named in the suit are Thomas W. Pritchard, managing director of Pritchard Capital, and former executives Joseph J. Van Book and Elizabeth A. McMahon.