Money Management Executive Latest News

Participation in employer-sponsored retirement plans among those between the ages of 21 and 64 slipped this year, but among those who do participate, women outnumber men, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

With the Legg Mason Value Prime Fund up 1.6% through last Friday, versus the S&P 500 up 11.9%, it appears that celebrated fund manager Bill Miller is about to end his 15-year streak of beating the benchmark, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports.

Under a preliminary settlement agreement that plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Missouri, current and former customers of Edward D. Jones would receive an average of $22 apiece, while their attorneys, who work at 11 different law firms, would split $38 million, the St. Louis Daily Record reports.The filing included the $127.5 million the company agreed to pay two months ago when it settled nine class-action lawsuits over its revenue-sharing practices. The firm reached a $75 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Stock Exchange and NASD in December 2004 over the practices.

Chase Investment Corp. and MetLife Securities both got slapped with a $500,000 fine from the NASD for failing to establish systems and procedures to supervise the sales of 529 college saving plans.

With exchange-traded funds flooding the market, the demand for ETF executives has been rising as well, Dow Jones reports. Likewise, these executives are commanding very competitive salaries.

New York Life Promotes Salama to Retirement Chief

Administrators of 401(k) plans have been strategizing to decide what products to offer and how to capture Baby Boomers assets. According to a new report from Cerulli Associates of Boston, 401(k) providers should consider nine factors: revenue profit potential, outsourcing, technology, customer needs, service and support platforms, consolidation activity, regulatory impacts, rollovers and retirement income, and the cost of total benefits integration.

After a buying push in the past five years to expand nationally, Wilmington Trust said it plans to focus on organic growth to expand its assets before looking to acquire in other wealthy markets.

Vanguard Group is expanding its offerings with the addition of the Vanguard Structured Large-Cap Value Fund, now in registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The new fund, which Vanguard hopes to launch by mid-January, will offer both institutional and institutional-plus shares with investment minimums of $5 million and $200 million, respectively.

Investors beware. The mutual fund industry is gearing up to deliver the largest tax distribution in six years, the third-largest ever, USA Today reports.