Money Management Executive Latest News

In an apparent attempt to distance itself from the troubling practices scarring the company and industry, Putnam Investments told the maligned Boilermakers Local 5 Union to find a new retirement plan manager, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Curian Capital, which has made headway in the asset management market by offering a range of low-minimum separately managed accounts (SMAs) to high-net-worth individuals, further expanded Monday when it announced it would become the sub-advisor for Lansing, Mich.-based Jackson National Life Insurance Company.

Four of the nation’s largest public pension funds are going after the board of directors of Putnam Investments’ parent company Marsh & McLennan Companies for its "failure to properly control its money management business and for its severe lack of independent board leadership," the funds announced in a joint statement on Monday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission may charge Sun Life Financial Inc.’s mutual fund unit for market timing, the company admitted.

Not everyone is on board with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s plan to curb late-trading.

Fund giant Vanguard announced late Thursday that it has closed the $664 million Vanguard Global Equity fund to new investors.

iShares Lehman TIPS Bond Fund began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, according to Barclays Global Investors.

California pension giant CalSTRs said Thursday that it has fired Putnam Investments as money manager as the noose around the embattled fund firm tightens.

Michael Buchanan, the Janus High-Yield Fund portfolio manager, said he is quitting after a mere five months on the job. Originally Buchanan came to Janus Capital from New York-based investment firm BlackRock Inc. to replace Sandy Rufenacht as manager of the fund. Buchanan will leave the firm Dec. 19 and will be replaced by Gibson Smith, manager of Janus' short-term bond products and assistant portfolio manager of the Janus Flexible Income Fund. Smith will continue to run the Janus Short-Term Bond portfolios.

The spate of investigations into mutual fund trading practices and intense media coverage has prompted more than one-third of existing mutual fund investors to say they are unlikely to buy mutual funds any time soon, according to a survey conducted by The Lumin Collaborative, a Richmond, Va.-based PR firm. Further, 77% say they would pull their money from any fund they believed violated its fiduciary responsibility.