Money Management Executive Latest News

PHOENIX, Ariz. - Insurance industry products and variable annuities in particular have always been targets for government revenue-raising measures due to their tax-preferred treatment, according to Stephen Zimmerman, a partner at Dykema Gossett PLLC of Washington D.C. As the new administration settles in, a panel of lawyers discussed legislative issues likely to arise that could affect the annuity industry at the National Association for Variable Annuities marketing conference held here last month.

The board of directors of two closed-end funds, the $72 million Cornerstone Strategic Return Fund and the $55 million Clemente Strategic Value Fund, has fired Clemente Capital of New York as the investment adviser of both funds effective March 3.

Fidelity Investments' websites, Fidelity.com and AdvisorXpress.com,were ranked number one in a recent survey by Dalbar of Boston, a financial services research company.

Nearly 30 percent of recent retirees and job changers who rolled their retirement plan balances into a new IRA, stayed with their original provider, according to a recent study. Those original providers, in most cases, were mutual fund companies, according to the study by Brightwork Partners of Old Greenwhich, Conn. and Greenfield Online, of Wilton, Conn.

At least one U.S. exchange has begun negotiations with the Financial Times Stock Exchange of London for the licensing rights to list exchange-traded funds that will track a new series of socially-responsible indices offered by FTSE, said Will Oulton, president of FTSE North America in New York.

The Taiwan Fund of Boston has announced that the China Development Industrial Bank plans to sell all or part of its interest in China Securities Investment Trust, the fund's investment adviser.

Touchstone Advisors of Cincinnati is asking shareholders of the Touchstone Emerging Growth Fund to approve the firing of David L. Babson & Company as the fund's sub-adviser, according to a preliminary proxy filed Feb. 26 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The National Investor Relations Institute of Vienna, Va., has announced results of a survey regarding the impact of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Regulation Fair Disclosure on corporate disclosure practices.

The DEM Index Fund, which is based on an index that tracks minority-owned companies, is facing liquidation after attracting only $212,391 in assets since it was introduced March 23, 1999, according to a proxy filed Feb. 20 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jeanette LeBlanc has been named director of marketing services of the Calvert Group of Bethesda, Md. LeBlanc was formerly vice president of the retail advisory products department of T. Rowe Price Associates of Baltimore, Md.