Money Management Executive Latest News

Thomas F. Eggers has been named president and CEO of Scudder Investments. He joins the firm from Dreyfus, where he had served for six years, only last October becoming president of Dreyfus and CEO of Dreyfus Service Corp. [see MFMN 10/8/01]. He replaces Mark Casady, who has joined LPL Financial Services of Boston as chief operating officer.

Mellon Financial Corp. will acquire Weber Fulton & Felman, an investment management firm based in Cleveland that specializes in the high-net-worth, not-for-profit and retirement markets. The firm has approximately $800 million in assets under management and administration.

Retirement plan administrator Invesmart 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. As an investment advisor to 401(k) plans, Invesmart works with plan sponsors on plan design, not with participants on individual asset allocation, an Invesmart spokesman said.

State Street Corp. is cutting approximately 375 positions from its eastern Massachusetts-based staff. The current round of cuts results primarily from efficiencies generated by technology investments, said David Spina, chairman and CEO. However, he also left open the possibility of future cuts.

Stock funds experienced net flows of $29.28 billion in Match, up sharply from an inflow of $5.40 billion in February, the Investment Company Institute reported last week. The ICI’s flow data substantiates earlier estimates of fund research firms [see MFMN 4/18/02].

Morningstar of Chicago announced last week that its system for rating mutual funds, commonly known as the "star rating," will be altered this summer to include a broader number of categories, which the company hopes will render it more relevant to the way investors use mutual funds.

As mutual fund complexes have reported their first quarter 2002 earnings in recent weeks, analysts say it is apparent that sluggish markets have continued to drag down the industry, making it a real challenge for fund companies to develop and market products.

Mutual funds that are used specifically as investments of variable annuities will now follow disclosure rules more in line with the rest of the fund world.

Two top executives with Kinetics Asset Management have left the White Plains, N.Y., fund group best known for its once high-flying Internet fund. Kinetics' former chief executive officer and chief operating officer have spun off a new alternative investment advisory firm and registered the first of several novel open-end mutual funds that will employ various alternative investment strategies.

Flows into mutual funds were at near-record levels in March, but analysts say the industry is not yet showing signs of fully recovering from the past two years of turbulent markets.