Money Management Executive Latest News

It's not every day one encounters a company that's content to be No. 2. But that's exactly the business plan of Principal Retirement & Investor Services. While Principal serves three million investors in 40,000 employer plans, most of those plans are at companies with 1,000 workers or less.

Curian Capital announced last Wednesday that Legacy Bank, La Jolla, Calif., has added Curian's managed account program to its menu of investment products. Legacy Bank is a locally owned and managed financial institution that focuses on private banking clients.

Steady economic growth has prompted Japanese fund managers to bulk up their portfolios with domestic stocks and filter out bonds, a Reuters poll showed.

One million customers won a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco against Bank of America yesterday, and The Wall Street Journal reports that the victory may result in the bank having to pay $1 billion to reimburse them.

FleetBoston Financial has begun to feel ripple effects from the civil fraud charges filed by regulators last week, including a review by New York State officials of the implications for investors in the 529 college savings program that Fleet's Columbia Asset Management unit began managing in January.

Equity mutual fund assets posted a $43.76 billion inflow in January, up from the $14.18 billion inflow in December, according to the Investment Company Institute’s most recent survey of the fund industry.

John Hancock Advisers announced Friday the launch of its 13th closed-end fund, a fund that aims to provide a high level of after-tax return from dividend income and capital appreciation.

Any type of arbitrage activity in an annuity is of concern to the New York Attorney General’s office, David Brown, the head of its investment protection bureau, warned yesterday. And the NASD and SEC are both poised to levy charges against annuities, The New York Times reports this morning.

Fred Alger Management announced yesterday it has hired Katherine P. Feld as senior vice president and chief compliance officer.

The National Association of Securities Dealers has slapped its first fine on a brokerage firm for violating NAV transfer program procedures.