Money Management Executive Latest News

Alarm bells are going off in the Chinese mutual fund industry, which posted a collective $489 million net loss in the second half of 2004, Reuters reports. China's nine-month stock slump, fierce competition and a lack of derivatives to hedge investments contributed to a gloomy outlook for two-thirds of the country's 153 mutual funds.

The loosely regulated hedge fund industry posted a 19% gain last year, attracting $73.6 billion in new assets, according to data released by Hedge Fund Research Inc.

Investment manager Waddell & Reed Financial reported a slight drop in quarterly earnings, citing higher compensation and distribution expenses.

Advisers for President Bush decided late last week upon a proposal for restructuring the private accounts his administration wants to create in Social Security, but it's likely that Wall Street's profits from such a plan will be thin.

Variable annuities have again come under fire, this time through a pair of class-action lawsuits led by Finkelstein & Krinsk, one targeting Linsco/Private Ledger Corp. and the other targeting Morgan Stanley. In statements, Finkelstein & Krinsk claims that both firms "made false and misleading statements and omitted material facts concerning their undisclosed financial interests with third-party suppliers of annuity contracts," the firm stated.

Diversified Management Resources, a mutual strategic consulting and executive recruiting firm that has partnered with NICSA and others, has launched a brief survey on one controversial aspect of new regulations: the independent chairman rule. The survey is intended to gather information so that DMR can provide the fund industry with a comprehensive look at fund directors' perspectives on governance issues and regulations.

European sales of retail mutual funds for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (MLIM) have topped institutional fund sales for the first time, according to the company's earnings report for the fourth quarter of 2004.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sent Hartford Financial Services Group a subpoena for documents pertaining to annuity sales, according to one of the company's recent regulatory filings, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

A mass exodus of investment professionals departing from Janus Capital Management was averted this week when 21 portfolio managers inked fresh contracts promising merit-based bonuses linked to investment performance, Rocky Mountain News reports.

The battle to overturn newly enacted regulations calling for independent chairmen to head mutual fund boards heated up again Wednesday after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a biting legal brief accusing the Securities and Exchange Commission of admitting that some independent directors are ineffective, Dow Jones Newswires reports.