Money Management Executive Latest News

Most fund companies have not made it through the current bear market without losing assets, but some have been hit harder than others. With a few exceptions, large firms have lost a smaller percentage of their assets than smaller firms since the Nasdaq peaked last March, according to statistics from Financial Research Corp. of Boston, a mutual fund research and tracking firm.

The job market in the fund industry has softened in the past year so much that the edge prospective employees once had in negotiating benefits and other perquisites as conditions of their employment has been eliminated, according to industry recruiters.

The first wave of privacy disclosures are appearing in mutual fund prospectuses and first quarter 2000 account statements being mailed to fund investors.

White Plains, N.Y. - Kinetics Asset Management of White Plains, N.Y. is in an expansion mode. Four-and-a-half years after introducing its flagship Internet Fund, the fund group is in negotiations to acquire a small fund group with complementary competencies. Also, on May 1, Kinetics will add an A share class to three of its most popular, previously no-load funds, allowing the firm to widen its distribution to broker/dealers.

The Investment Company Institute of Washington D.C. has taken the unusual step of submitting a follow up letter to an earlier request that the Securities and Exchange Commission regulate portfolio products like mutual funds.

Strong Capital Management of Menomonee Falls, Wis., adviser to the Strong Family of Funds, in an effort to cut costs, will ask its shareholders in July to approve a new management agreement that will add management fee breakpoints on all but 10 funds and for the first time, impose administrative fees, the company announced on Wednesday.

Bank One of Chicago and Fidelity Investments Institutional Services of Boston have formed a partnership in which Bank One will sell Fidelity’s funds through its retirement distribution network, the companies announced today.

SG Asset Management, the asset management arm of the Societe Generale Group of Paris, will acquire 70 percent of TCW of Los Angeles, the fund manager with $80 billion in assets under management, SocGen announced yesterday.

The annual Liberty Funds’ Tax Pain Index, which measures the taxes paid by U.S. investors on their mutual fund dividends and capital gains distributions, grew 9.5 percent from 1998 to 1999.

Barclays Global Investors of London has chosen Investors Financial Service Corp. of Boston to conduct operations for Barclays’ U.S.-based asset administration unit, Investors Financial announced today.