Money Management Executive Latest News

Gene Podsiadlo, president of Warburg Pincus Funds of Boston, a unit of Credit Suisse Asset Management of Zurich, has left the organization. Also, 35 staffers of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Asset Management Group of Jersey City, N.J., which Credit Suisse Asset Management acquired Nov. 3, have been cut from the organization.

Ray Pfeister has been elected vice chairman of Fred Alger Management of New York, an investment management company with over $24 billion in assets under management. Previously, Pfeister was executive vice president of Fred Alger. Before joining the company in 1987, he was a partner at Coopers & Lybrand of New York.

Overseas buyers of U.S. asset managers have pushed the number and prices of mergers and acquisitions to record levels this year.

Investors who want to minimize taxes do not necessarily have to abandon actively-managed equity products for tax-free or exchange- traded funds.

The past year was one in which fund alternatives - from managed separate accounts and online portfolio products to hedge funds and exchange-traded funds - earned respect, if somewhat grudgingly, from the fund industry.

If there is a stock index to track, chances are good that there is an exchange-traded fund based on that index. So far, however, there is not an exchange-traded fund that tracks a socially-responsible index of stocks. But, that may soon change, according to industry analysts and executives.

Don Phillips, who has been Morningstar's outspoken CEO for the past three years, has been replaced by the company's founder and chairman, Joe Mansueto. The company is also adopting a decentralized organizational structure that will divide the company into seven independent business units, said Mansueto. The move will enable the company to keep track of its sources of revenue and profits more closely, he said. Phillips will now be one of three managing directors responsible for the oversight of the new business units. Mansueto, meanwhile, will resume his day-to-day oversight of the firm, he announced last week.

Legg Mason of Baltimore has announced it will acquire 100 percent of the privately-held stock of Barrett Associates of New York for an undisclosed amount over the next five years. Nine of Barrett's principals, as well as John D. Barrett, II, the firm's chairman and CEO, will stay on under long-term agreements each has signed, Legg Mason said in a statement.

There is considerable room for improvement in how institutional investment companies present themselves to investors over the Internet, according to a study by kasina, LLC, an e-commerce consulting company, of New York.

KLD & Co., of Boston, a provider of social research for institutional investors, has created the KLD Broad Market Social Index, a new socially-responsible index that is based on the Russell 3000 index of stocks. The Russell 3000 index includes stocks that constitute 98 percent of the U.S. equity market capitalization. KLD announced the new index last week.