Money Management Executive Latest News

The downturn in the economy has prompted Putnam Investments of Boston to lay off 256 workers, about four percent of its 6,000 employees, according to a memorandum issued today by Lawrence J. Lasser, Putnam’s CEO and president, to company employees.

President Bush’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2002 proposes staff reductions in several areas of the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in the office of investment management, which oversees mutual funds, according to an SEC document.

The New York Stock Exchange announced Friday that it would soon begin trading exchange-traded funds on an unlisted trading privileges basis.

Despite a difficult market last year for mutual fund investors, independent fund directors awarded themselves an 11 percent average pay raise in 2000.

John Sosnowy has agreed to sell the assets of his firm, Sosnowy Investment Management Co. of Cameron, Texas to Flexible Plan Investments of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., one of the nation’s largest investment advisory firms offering active management of mutual fund accounts.

Existing bear market conditions and reduced flows have prompted the Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa. to re-open the Vanguard Capital Opportunity Fund and the Vanguard Primecap Fund to new investors, the company announced today.

The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations of Washington, D.C., an umbrella organization of American labor unions, last week launched a new electronic letter writing campaign on its Executive PayWatch website urging investors to protest the escalation of CEO compensation by sending electronic messages to mutual fund and pension fund managers, according to a company statement.

Franklin Templeton Investments of San Mateo, Calif. and Mercury Funds of New York have formed a partnership in which Franklin Templeton will distribute one of Mercury Funds' 529 college savings plans, the two firms announced last week.

E*TRADE Group of Menlo Park, Calif. last week announced the opening of its first offline E*TRADE Center, on Madison Avenue in New York. The 30,000 square foot center is the first of 20 planned nationwide and expected to open this year. The firm said it wants to develop a physical presence to complement its online discount brokerage, online bank and wealth management capabilities.

Laura Unger, acting chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, announced in a speech before the Philadelphia Bar Association late last month that the SEC's staff is working on an interpretive bulletin which will emphasize that technical compliance with Rule 482, the advertising rule, will not protect firms from charges of fraud. Unger said the bulletin will also point out that it may be necessary to provide investors with additional facts, which give investors an accurate picture of a fund's performance in order to avoid running afoul of anti-fraud provisions.