Money Management Executive Latest News

Just short of one year after its launch of three online mutual funds, X.com Asset Management of Palo Alto, Calif., adviser to the X.com fund family, may have decided to get out of the mutual fund business. The four funds in the X.com fund family have been offered exclusively via the Internet.

WASHINGTON D.C. - Because of the volatility of the high-yield municipal bond market, SEC examiners will begin to watch more carefully how fund companies establish prices for illiquid securities, said SEC officials.

John Clifton Bogle is not only the founder of Vanguard but also the pioneer of the first no-load and the first index mutual fund. After stepping down as senior chairman of The Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa. last December, Bogle became president of the Bogle Financial Markets Research Center, a think-tank at Vanguard headquarters.

The net new cash flow of long term mutual funds was a little over $12 billion in September, down 42 percent from August, according to the Investment Company Institute of Washington, D.C. Net flows rose 38 percent in August, according to the ICI.

Allianz Group of Munich, Germany will acquire Nicholas-Applegate of San Diego for $2.07 billion, $980 million of it up front and another $1.09 billion contingent upon Nicholas-Applegate achieving a 25 percent annual growth rate over the next five years, Allianz has announced.

The Pioneer Group of Boston, which currently manages $24 billion in assets, last week completed a spinoff of all of its non-investment management businesses and assets, the company announced

Franklin Templeton Investments of San Mateo, Calif. will acquire Fiduciary Trust International of New York for $825 million in stock, forming a company with $280 billion in assets under management, the companies announced last week.

Alliance Capital Management of New York and AXA Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of the AXA Group of Paris, have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish new asset management companies in Australia and New Zealand. Alliance and AXA will each own 50 percent and have equal representation on the boards of the two new companies, to be called Alliance Capital Management Australia and Alliance Capital Management New Zealand, according to the companies.

New York Life Investment Management Holdings of Parsippany, N.J. announced last week that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire the mutual fund and separately-managed account business of Towneley Capital Management of New York. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Barclays Global Investors of San Francisco will launch its first exchange-traded fund that tracks a Nasdaq index sometime in January, according to a preliminary prospectus the company filed with the SEC Oct. 19.