Money Management Executive Latest News

With the prolonged market downturn, getting retail investors to keep assets in funds is becoming increasingly difficult, while institutional investors with their more disciplined investment style are becoming fund companies' new best friends.

At the height of the bull market, fund fees were of little consequence to most investors. So shelling out 25 basis points for a fund that was consistently returning 25% a year seemed a small price to pay.

After major investment managers announced significant layoffs earlier this year, the industry's ears perked up when published reports [first reported Sept. 4 on the MFMN Web site] announced that Fidelity Investments would be making cuts of its own. But last week when the firm announced the cuts, the total was much lower than anticipated, and as a result, is being interpreted by many as sign of optimism for the industry.

MFMarketnews.com is keeping abreast of the industry's latest developments with postings twice a day. If you didn't log on last week here are some Web exclusives you missed:

While the Internet has proven to be something less than the dominant distribution channel many had hoped for, in the past year, funds' online initiatives have largely been directed at capturing and servicing broker-dealers, wirehouses and other intermediaries.

During a time when companies increasingly find competent, dedicated staff hard to come by, the most recent results from an ongoing study by PricewaterhouseCoopers about job satisfaction at financial service companies found that management-level employees may be more loyal to a good mentor than to their firms.

September was the worst month on record for equity funds in terms of net outflows with $29.5 billion in outflows, but there is some good news for equity funds: Money market funds experienced net inflows of $53.2 billion, the most since February, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Quintara Funds may be onto something new with its performance-based fees.

Franklin Templeton Investments announced that, effective Jan. 1, 2002, it will combine its financial advisor and financial institutions divisions to form the independent and bank division. There will be no change in wholesaler staffing as a result of the combination. However, territories in the independent & bank division and the wirehouse/regional division will be redefined, and in most cases, reduced in size.

AIM Fund Services, the transfer agent unit of Aim Management Group, has promoted three executives to senior VP positions and three more to the position of VP, the company announced last week.