Money Management Executive Latest News

It doesn't happen very often. But when independent directors who sit on mutual fund boards become the focus of criminal allegations, lawsuits, investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission or public scrutiny, fund companies and their boards of directors often find they must make an important decision. Should they ask the trustee to resign or stay the course?

The downfall of Enron of Houston evidently has not caused some retirement plan participants to be wary of how much they have invested in their company's stock, according to a recent survey by Boston Research Group of Hopkinton, Mass.

Retirement plan administrator Invesmart of Pittsburgh landed business in the first quarter of this year to administer 274 additional 401(k) plans, 197 of which have asked the company to help them select investment options for their plan, in addition to Invesmart's standard record keeping and administrative services.

In a seemingly counterintuitive move, the mutual fund industry has been raising the minimums needed to open an account, rather than lowering them to snag new investors.

Amid worries that the markets still aren't bouncing back as readily as many investment professionals would like and a greater focus on intermediary sales, advertising spending by mutual fund companies continued to slide dramatically in the first quarter of this year from the comparable period a year ago.

JPMorgan Investor Services of New York has begun publishing a magazine, aimed primarily at current and prospective institutional clients, designed to show off the firm's risk management, distribution and technology skills.

What could be a better present for your most compulsive clients than neatly printed statements showing every dime they have - not just the individual securities, mutual funds and managed accounts, but their 401(k) accounts, 529 plans and checking accounts as well?

The board of directors of Neuberger Berman of New York has replaced Arthur Andersen of Chicago as the firm's independent auditor with KPMG.

NYLIM Retirement Plan Services, a division of New York Life Investment Management, both of Parsippany, N.J., has created a password-protected section of its Web site specifically for registered reps. NYLIM Retirement provides a variety of products for defined-contribution and defined-benefit programs, including MainStay Funds and Eclipse Funds.

Morgan Stanley is selling its self-directed online account business to Harrisdirect, a division of the Bank of Montreal Group of Cos., for $106 million.