Money Management Executive Latest News

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has subpoenaed Liberty Mutual Group for possibly questionable sales tactics, The Boston Globe reports. The company is the first in the Boston area to be included in the quickly developing probe into the insurance industry. Last week, Putnam’s parent company and the world’s No. 1 insurer, Marsh & McLennan, was sued by Spitzer for allegedly sending clients off to the insurers that gave it the most money.

TFS Capital, a hedge fund, has launched its first ever mutual fund, the TFS Market Neutral Fund, Hedge World News reports.

The lobbying group for U.S. hedge funds has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to figure out a way to regulate the industry without making registration with the Commission mandatory, The New York Post reports.

Vanguard has lowered the expense ratios on six of its Nevada state-sponsored 529 College Savings Plan portfolios, bringing them in line with the majority of its portfolios in that state’s plan, Vanguard announced Tuesday.

A federal appeals court has denied a request by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to delay new rules requiring mutual funds to have an independent chairman, the Wall Street Journal reports. The world’s largest business group had launched a campaign to postpone more stringent governance measures adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission this past summer pending the outcome of its lawsuit challenging the move.

Regulators are sending a clear message to white-collar criminals: Do not expect lenient punishments.

Clear Asset Management announced Monday it has launched a suite of software-managed separately managed account portfolios designed to "remove Wall Street bias and human opinion" by using software to evaluate more than 10,000 publicly traded U.S. companies. Each of the six equity portfolios of 20 to 25 stocks uses proprietary stock-screening algorithms based on 700 screening criteria apiece.

The SEC’s latest investigation at Bear Stearns concerns municipal bond offerings, not municipal bond mutual funds, as incorrectly cited in a Tuesday, Oct. 19 MME news item.

Municipal bond underwriting practices at Bear Stearns are under a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, the company indicated in a regulatory filing Friday. The Chicago branch of Bear Stearns is also being checked out by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Illinois and state securities regulators, both of which have served the firm with subpoenas.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating FMI Mutual Funds for possible improper trading practices, the company indicated Friday in a regulatory filing.