Money Management Executive Latest News

The Investment Company Institute Monday said it strongly supports the SEC’s pending proposal to ban directed brokerage arrangements and amend Rule 12b-1 to prohibit fund companies from using these fees to pay commissions to brokers who sell their funds.

Rydex Investments has turned to Ibbotson Associates’ marketing services division, Agency Ibbotson, to help it market its alternative index funds. Ibbotson will start by doing research on how three types of alternative investments – leveraged funds, inverse funds and sector-rotation funds – are used in a traditional portfolio. Leveraged funds are designed to capture returns in upward markets, inverse funds are designed to capture returns in down markets, and sector-rotation funds move into the best-performing sectors in a sideways market.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has subpoenaed Putnam Investments over 401(k) fee rebates, Putnam’s parent company Marsh & McLennan has revealed in an SEC filing. The subpoenas refer to "expense reimbursement agreements between Putnam and deferred compensation clients" as well as consultants to the plans, according to the filing.

The Ontario Security Commission is going to send on-site examiners to review the trading records of a number of Canadian mutual fund managers to see if the trading abuses that have been uncovered in the U.S. have occurred in that nation, as well, The Hamilton Spectator reports.

Even before the fund scandal broke, a number of fund managers in recent years have left Janus and Invesco for hedge funds, attracted by their freer investment styles and bigger payout, Rocky Mountain News reports.

Life insurance giant Prudential Financial Inc. revealed Friday that several regulators are investigating its mutual fund dealings, Reuters reports.

The Investment Company Institute has endorsed the Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposal to install a mandatory redemption fee on all short-term mutual fund transactions but says 2% should be a minimum redemption fee.

Julie Domenick, an Investment Company Institute employee for 23 years who currently serves as its executive vice president, is leaving to become managing principal of the Washington firm of Loeffler Jonas & Tuggey, the ICI announced.

Mutual fund assets worldwide rose to $13.96 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter, an increase of about 9% from the previous quarter, according to annual data Tuesday from the Investment Company Institute.

A subsidiary of Wachovia Corp. is being investigated over payments it received from mutual fund companies, and another may soon be charged with conflicts of interest involving stock research and investment banking, Reuters reports.