Money Management Executive Latest News

Advisors can anticipate the rollout of a full suite of marketing and sales tools designed to help them expand their IRA businesses.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering recommending charges against a Bear Stearns & Cos. executive and three former brokers, who were allegedly involved in processing improper mutual fund trades, Dow Jones reports.

A large inflow of money into 529 college-savings plan is a potential sign that Congress will act soon to make permanent the tax advantages that these vehicles enjoy, according to The Wall Street Journal.

MIAMI-- Jack Brennan, chairman and chief executive of the Vanguard Group, blasted rival investment products such as hedge funds and separately managed accounts on Monday and defended the mutual fund industry against mounting criticism.

JPMorgan announced Tuesday it has officially merged the One Group Mutual Funds into the JP Morgan Funds, creating a $200 billion complex of 101 funds that is now the nation's fifth-largest.

China's central bank voted Sunday to allow banks to launch mutual funds of their own or to partner with foreign investment advisors or domestic insurers or pension companies to do so. Although any new fund must initially invest in money market instruments or bonds, it will be allowed to expand into securities and other investments after a trial period as well as consulting with shareholders and the board.

Speculation that Marsh & McLennan might spin off its scandal-plagued Putnam Investments unit continues, with the Boston Business Journal now reporting that a sale, merger or management buyout are all seen as possibilities. The fact that MMC has been caught up in an insurance scandal of its own costing it an $850 million settlement makes a sale even more likely, because Putnam would probably fetch that amount or even far more, according to the paper. In fact, according to one analyst, Justin Fuller of Morningstar, Putnam accounts for nearly half of MMC's $32 stock value, which could put its price tag as high as $8 billion.

"As the scandal keeps growing deeper, the need for further reform becomes clear," according to a column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "It's as if the deeper regulators dig, the more rot they find," David Niklaus writes.

United States District Judge Andre M. Davis dismissed all remaining civil charges Tuesday against Charles Bryceland, a former Bank of America executive, on mutual fund timing and late trading. Although the SEC, NASD and the New York Attorney General have never charged Bryceland, he was named and then dropped as a defendant in a number of earlier cases.

The NASD has fined the former Quick & Reilly, now a member of the Banc of America Investment Services family, $570,000 for directed-brokerage violations. In addition, the brokerage industry's self-regulator imposed a $275,000 fine on Piper Jaffray & Co. for similar abuses. The Piper Jaffray fine was adjusted to reflect the firm's voluntary disclosure of its wrongdoing, which was uncovered during a self-evaluation.