Money Management Executive Latest News

French Bank Societe Generale is close to bring its asset management and private banking divisions closer together, according to an inside source, Dow Jones reports.

Talk about the retirement needs of Baby Boomers is rife, but the needs of women within that group may be more acute, due to longer anticipated life expectancies, lower incomes and less wealth than their male counterparts.

Standard Life Investments, one of the larger British fund managers, announced last week it had cut back on its U.S. equity stance, Reuters reports. The company stated the recent stock rally had made shares much more expensive. According to a recently released company outlook from Standard, "Their rise has taken the edge off the valuation argument and the economic environment is still mixed," adding that market progress may now become "more erratic." Standard Life has around 75 billion pounds ($122.7 billion) in assets and recently stated it was moving its exposure to U.S. equities to "heavy" from "very heavy". In April, while expecting a rally, the fund had shifted to "very heavy."

U.S. regulators believe not enough information on what incentives brokers get to sell certain mutual fund products are disclosed, Reuters reports. "We are engaged in a fact-finding inquiry into how broker/dealers distribute mutual fund shares," said Paul Roye, director of the. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Investment Management. This comes at a time when the mutual fund industry faces increasing regulation scrutiny into fees, performance and distribution practices after a three-year bear market.

The market for real estate investment trusts (REITs) continues to look strong, but analysts at UBS Warburg warn that things may not stay that way. A recent report, "REITSearch Fundamentals: Spreads Shades of 1997," refers to the "good old days" of 1997 that, like today, saw narrow REIT margins.

Underwriting is the big bugaboo of life insurance. Because it takes so long, customers often forget why they wanted the policy in the first place and cancel the sale. A new real-time system from Sapiens International Corp. has changed that for one client, OneBeacon Insurance Group.

Bank of New York has named Steven Pisarkiewicz executive vice president and head of its investment branch BNY Asset Management.

Mark Marinella has joined State Street Research & Management Co. as chief investment officer of fixed income. In this role, Marinella will oversee the firm's fixed income investment management, research, trading and administration. Marinella will lead a team of over 35 portfolio managers, analysts and traders. He will report to Richard S. Davis, president and chief executive officer.

Overture Asset Managers, LLC, an asset management holding company that acquires and manages boutique investment advisors, announced today that industry veteran Larry "Chip" Seibert will rejoin Avatar Associates, an Overture affiliate, as senior vice president and equity portfolio manager.

AIM Fund Services, the transfer agent of AIM Management Group, has switched from using two portals to supply financial intermediaries with customer information, to just using DST Systems' Vision. Previously, AIM also used the fund industry-owned AdvisorCentral, but when it found that 90% of traffic to intermediaries and broker/dealers was running on Vision, the company decided to make the change.