Money Management Executive Latest News

Competition, if nothing else, keeps companies constantly looking for the next innovative product or strategy that will bring more assets to their firm. That is why many asset management firms are choosing to offer the increasingly popular 130/30 strategies as the benefits of shorting stocks can outweigh the benefits of going long, according to the report "130/30: From Rationale to Implementation" by New York-based Merrill Lynch.

BISYS Fund Services may be all but history now with various servicing units having been parceled out to other acquiring firms. But troubles are still brewing among at least some of the 27 mutual fund clients that the firm had questionable distribution arrangements with dating back to the 1990s. And now, fund advisors are opening their wallets in an effort to make investors whole.

The Department of Labor estimates that automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans, as protected under the Pension Protection Act, will add between $45 billion to $90 billion a year to the plans, which had $3.6 trillion in assets under management in 2006, according to the Investment Company Institute.

General American Settles With SEC for $3.3M

William Blair Names Chief Operating Officer

Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the asset management industry is booming, and demand is not likely to stop anytime soon, nor are the competitive prices buyers are willing to pay for the deals. However, market turmoil and a more challenging leveraged finance environment could temporarily cool the enthusiasm of some private equity shops for asset managers and derail initial public offerings,

The acquisition of CheckFree Corp. of Norcross, Ga., by Fiserv of Brookfield, Wis., announced on Aug. 2, has raised questions as to whether CheckFree's investment services division will stay or go, perhaps being independently sold off to the highest bidder. The unit provides the separately managed account (SMA) technology, including client reporting and portfolio management, for investment managers and broker/dealers.

While income-oriented closed-end funds have attracted billions of dollars in assets, with some of them offering income of as much as 9% a year, they are taking a beating along with many other stocks, The Wall Street Journal reports. And in the past six weeks, some of them have tanked as much as 20%.

Investors contributed $70.29 billion to money market funds in the week ended Tuesday, according to iMoneyNet’s Money Fund Report, Reuters reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has distributed $55.6 million to 200,000 Banc One investors whose holdings were depleted by market timing. The fair fund resulted from a 2004 settlement in which Banc One Investment Advisors agreed to pay $10 million in disgorgement and $40 million in civil penalties.