Money Management Executive Latest News

Socially responsible Pax World Balanced Fund is giving investors the opportunity to contribute investment proceeds to provide humanitarian aid to Iraq. Through its affiliate Mercy Corps, a relief and development organization operating in the Middle East, Pax World will help provide refugees with food, shelter and sanitation facilities. Mercy Corps will also establish medical clinics for displaced families, and help to rebuild the infrastructure of the nation once the conflict has ended.

JPMorgan Investor Services announced yesterday it has been appointed by the ISIS Asset Management to serve as a custodian for its estimated $12 billion in assets, including more than 50 of the ISIS retail collective investment funds. JPMorgan Trustee Services will act as depository and trustee for the fund complex.

Mid-sized 401(k) plan sponsors know they are in the driver’s seat and are looking for some of the same services that plan providers have only given large corporations.

Putnam Investments has hired a head of global stock research.

Mutual funds with exposure to municipal bonds backed by airline companies have seen dismal returns, as the war further weakens the airline industry, which still has not recovered from the 9/11 terrorism attack, The Wall Street Journal reports.

BISYS’ new consulting division, BISYS Distribution Solutions, will help investment firms improve their distribution strategies, the company announced yesterday.

UBS PaineWebber has added two portfolios from Neuberger Berman to Access, its separately managed account (SMA) platform. The new All-Cap Core and Small-Cap Core portfolios being added to the product line are new investment additions and do not replace any existing portfolios, according to a spokeswoman from PaineWebber.

The average annual expense ratio of U.S. mutual funds last year rose to 1.266%, up from 1.249% in 2001, according to a report Lipper released yesterday.

"Should You Dump Your 401(k)?" is this week’s attention-grabbing cover of Money magazine. It’s enough to make plan providers quiver in their boots. After posing this startling question, the magazine says, no.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has put Vanguard founder Jack Bogle on his short list of New York Stock Exchange board members, replacing Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill, who withdrew his name from the hat over the weekend, the New York Post reports. John Biggs, former chairman of TIAA-CREF, Peter Clapman, also an executive with the pension giant, and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, current chairman of the Consumer Federation of America, are three other people Spitzer would like to sit on the board of the world’s most important stock exchange.