Money Management Executive Latest News

Despite relentlessly turbulent market conditions, an overwhelming majority of institutional investors polled by a recent Merrill Lynch survey predicted global equities to outperform bonds next year, Reuters reports.

Gifts and perks once believed to be harmless tokens of appreciation have moved into regulators’ crosshairs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Lenticular advertising campaigns may become more common among insurance and financial services companies. The technology, which in a more primitive form has been a common Cracker Jack prize, allows companies to show images that shift depending on the viewer’s angle. Nationwide Financial, for example, recently started using lenticular advertisements for its "Life Comes at You Fast" campaign.

The Investment Company Institute announced Tuesday that Brian Reid has been promoted to chief economist. Reid succeeds John Rea, who is retiring at the end of the year after 10 years of service.

The fast-growing exchange-traded fund industry netted $3.6 billion of inflows during a one-week period in late November, marking the industry’s third-highest weekly draw, CBS MarketWatch reports.

Franklin Templeton is the fifth mutual fund company to come under the watchful eye of the Ontario Securities Commission, Canadian Press reports. And if found guilty of market timing, Franklin and the four other fund companies are not going to come off lightly, as the OSC is expected to levy record fines.

Regulators’ widespread probe into the $7.6 trillion mutual fund industry is likely to continue throughout 2005 and possibly into the following year through new chapters investigating questionable relationships with brokerage firms, InvestmentNews reports.

Franklin Templeton will eliminate B share classes on its funds as of Jan. 14. This could signal the end to the controversial share class, which has come under regulators’ scrutiny in recent months.

Canadian regulators reportedly have entered the final stages of a probe involving three prominent North American mutual fund providers. The Ontario Securities Commission launched a probe in November to uncover practices of improper market timing and late trading at CI Fund Management Inc., AGF Management Ltd. and IGM Financial Group, Inc.

AIG Global Investment Group , whose member companies are subsidiaries of American International Group Inc., announced Friday that AIG Private Equity Portfolio III, or PEP III, had its second and final close on Nov. 12, with commitments totaling nearly $239 million.