Money Management Executive Latest News

CHICAGO-As more banks weigh whether or not to offer separately managed accounts, their key considerations should include pricing, training, compensation and an open architecture platform that includes a mix of proprietary and outside investment products. That was the advice of speakers at Money Management Institute's Fourth Annual Separately Managed Accounts Conference here last week.

The EDGAR system is about to get a makeover. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox last week announced a $54 million initiative to take the 1980's-era system into the interactive age. The SEC has contracted with three companies, each to undertake a different segment of the overhaul.

Seven major corporations have been sued in federal courts for allegedly allowing mutual fund firms to charge millions of dollars in excessive 401(k) fees through hidden revenue-sharing agreements. Combined, the companies named in the suits have more than 400,000 participants in their 401(k) plans. They are Bechtel Group, Caterpillar, Exelon, General Dynamics, International Paper, Lockheed Martin and United Technologies. The fund companies, unnamed, allegedly charged higher fees and shared the revenue-sharing portion with 401(k) administrators that determined which funds should be included in the plans.

Morningstar Appoints Four Executives at Ibbotson

Frederick O'Meally, a former senior vice president and top-producing broker with Prudential Securities and then Wachovia Securities after the firms merged their retail brokerage divisions in 2003, has won a $3.8 million NASD arbitration award for having been fired for allowing market timing. The amount is based on a deferred compensation plan and a $1.3 million bonus.

CHICAGO-Banks hold only a 7.8% market share of the separately managed account industry, and as they try and gain assets from the registered independent advisors and wirehouses that dominate the market, they will be faced with challenges of pricing, open architecture, sales and marketing.

U.S. Bancorp's private-client group has started a nonproprietary separately managed account platform in an effort to bolster the options available to its customers.

Although a commissioner with the Securities and Exchange Commission recently said the SEC is trying to streamline its approval process for exchange-traded funds, a number of exchange-traded funds, including leveraged, oil and gold funds, are continuing to debut in Europe and Asia before launching in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reports.

With fears over interest rates and inflation diminished, investors in the third quarter were able to appreciate strong corporate earnings, and as a result, large-cap mutual funds delivered healthy results, MarketWatch reports.

Many fund companies fail through their wholesaling process to provide the information financial advisers seek, said speakers at SEI Investment’s Annual Mutual Fund Distribution Symposium.