Money Management Executive Latest News

A growing number of 401(k) plan participants are seeking a brokerage option within their 401(k) plans, according to a soon-to-be released study conducted by Hewitt Associates of Lincolnshire, Ill.

Flag Investors family of mutual funds of Baltimore will change its name to Deutsche Asset Management as of May 7 and will become part of the $48 billion mutual fund family of Deutsche Asset Management of New York, the U.S. investment arm of Deutsche Bank of Berlin. The name change was announced last week by the company.

Prudential PLC of London announced last week that it plans to buy American General Corporation of Houston for $22.3 billion.

MetLife of New York has announced the launching of MetLife Investors Group, a unit dedicated to serving intermediaries and their clients.

Munder Capital Management, adviser to the Munder Funds, has announced the opening of the Munder Power Plus Fund, one of the first mutual funds focused on investing in technology for new sources of power.

The Enterprise Group of Funds of Atlanta and Ibbotson Associates of Chicago have created a training program for broker/dealers and other financial intermediaries. The program will offer continuing education credits for qualified individuals.

Forum Funds of Portland, Maine has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the Shaker Fund, which would invest primarily in small and medium-sized companies and would be the newest fund in Forum's family of 19 funds. The family includes equity and municipal bond funds.

Bill Hoppe has been named national sales manager of the Fund Management Company, the institutional marketing subsidiary of AIM Management Group of Houston. Hoppe was senior vice president and regional sales manager with FMC. In his new post he will oversee FMC's six regional wholesalers who are responsible for selling AIM's institutional money market portfolios.

Although Fidelity Investments posted an overall profit of $2.2 billion in 2000, boosted by strong sales of its brokerage and institutional retirement products, its mutual funds' performance, sales and assets slumped and did not meet company projections, according to Fidelity's annual report released earlier this month.

NEW YORK - If mutual fund companies have not already taken action to comply with new privacy regulations, now is the time to do so, according to Gene Gohlke, associate director of the office of compliance and inspections at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Gohlke spoke about the focus of current SEC fund inspections at the National Investment Company Service Association's East Coast regional meeting here earlier this month.