Money Management Executive Latest News

Joel Goldberg is a partner in the New York office of the law firm of Swidler Berlin Shereff Freedman LLP of Washington, D.C. His clients include mutual funds and advisers. Before going into private practice in 1983, Goldberg was director of the division of investment management of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He will be moderating a panel on SEC inspections and enforcement at the Mutual Funds and Investment Management Conference co-sponsored by the Federal Bar Association and the Investment Company Institute this week in Palm Desert, Calif. Goldberg recently discussed the SEC and its enforcement issues and policies with Mutual Fund Market News reporter Andrew Greene. An edited version of their conversation follows.

The average outside wholesaler's salary climbed to approximately $409,000 in 2000 from $335,000 in 1999 and large fund firms' wholesaling costs rose 22 percent during the year, according to a study issued last week by Financial Research Corp. of Boston.

Three more online mutual funds quietly either closed to new investors or liquidated in January. Two of StockJungle.com's three remaining online funds as well as the Allied Owners Action Fund have joined four other virtual mutual funds that liquidated in December. The three funds failed to attract enough attention or amass enough assets. Of the dozen odd online funds created since 1999, seven remain open.

Add Putnam Investments of Boston to the list of fund advisers fed up with market timers.

NEW YORK - Human resource considerations should be paramount when investment companies consider going global, and yet usually, they are given the lowest priority, according to Sheryl Colyer, global head of human resources at Citigroup Asset Management of New York. Colyer spoke at the National Investment Company Service Association east coast regional meeting held here earlier this month. The priority given human resources could be decisive in a company's success or failure abroad, she said.

The Forecast Management Group of Mayfield Heights, Ohio filed a preliminary prospectus March 13 with the Securities and Exchange for the Solanus Family of Funds, a group of four no-load, sub-advised value-oriented funds.

U.K. mutual fund company Perpetual will integrate and co-brand its mutual funds with INVESCO UK under the name, INVESCO Perpetual Funds beginning April 6th, according to Perpetual.

The Dreyfus Corporation of New York announced today that it will close the Dreyfus Midcap Value Fund to new investors when the fund’s total net assets reach $1.4 billion. As of March 14, the fund’s total net assets were approximately $639.8 million, according to Dreyfus.

The board of directors of the $396 million Pilgrim Bank and Thrift Fund is asking shareholders to approve changes to the fund’s investment mandate to allow it to invest in other financial service firms including investment management companies, brokerage firms, insurance companies and electronic trading networks.

The Council of the European Union has approved legislation that would allow fund companies to sell in any European Union country, as long as the fund is registered in one of them.