Money Management Executive Latest News

The NASD has brought its first market-timing case involving variable universal life (VUL) policies. The organization has charged Jefferson Pilot Variable Corp. (JPVC) for "failing to have an adequate supervisory system in place to prevent market timing and excessive trading in the sub-accounts of its Ensemble series of VUL insurance policies."

Fidelity Investments has launched the Variable Insurance Product Freedom Funds, a series of seven lifecycle funds-of-funds that help investors choose an asset allocation strategy based on their stage in life and their expected retirement date.

New Jersey regulators last Tuesday revoked the licenses of three former Merrill Lynch brokers accused of fraud for conspiring with a hedge fund to make tens of thousands of market-timing trades netting $60 million for the fund.

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Perhaps nobody captured the current mood of the mutual fund business better than Barry Barbash, a former Securities and Exchange Commission investment management director, when he told industry executives attending the annual Investment Company Institute meeting here last week that registration was still open for an upcoming "Regulatory Overload Conference."

The Securities and Exchange Commission has been soft-pedaling its expectations for mutual fund chief compliance officers recently in an effort to alleviate concerns that its new compliance rule would effectively make them a junior police squad for the regulatory agency.

Sales of exchange-traded funds have grown rapidly in the past three years, but the number of companies manufacturing them in the United States shrank to seven last year and is unlikely to grow, market participants said.

Despite suffering massive outflows in recent years, Janus Capital Group's chief investment officer, Gary Black, is confident that the company will deliver the sound performance necessary for the firm to make a turnaround by year-end.

In the latest development in a number of civil lawsuits nationwide, where mutual fund investors are alleging that several fund companies allowed improper trading, a federal judge last week lifted the ban on plaintiffs from using documents that would help them build their case against the companies.

Regulators continue to hammer away at Putnam Investments, this time over potential conflicts of interest arising from its multiple role as investment advisor, retirement plan servicer and employer, parent company Marsh & McLennan indicated in its 2004 annual financial report. Although it isn't clear how serious some of these legal issues are, MMC devoted 11 pages to discussing them.

The chief executive officers of 14 major pan-European asset and fund management companies have teamed up in a new forum to push their case for a single EU cross-border investment market.