Money Management Executive Latest News

Morningstar of Chicago last week announced the formation of Morningstar Norge, a joint venture between Morningstar Europe and Finansbanken, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Storebrand of Norway. The joint venture will provide daily mutual fund information to newspapers and financial portals in Norway. Eventually, the company will create a website that will provide fund information and analysis to retail Norwegian investors, the company said.

Nancy Tengler has been appointed president and chief investment officer of Fremont Investment Advisors of San Francisco. Previously, Tengler was president and chief investment officer of Global Alliance Value Investors of Lafayette, Calif.

Washington, D.C. - The SEC should consider regulating products like separate accounts and hedge funds under the Investment Company Act of 1940 because they are increasingly available to the average investor who perceives them as a type of mutual fund, according to industry leaders.

Of the ten new streetTRACKS exchange-traded funds introduced this month, one in particular has caught the fund industry's attention for its ground-breaking nature.

While Janus of Denver and Fidelity Investments of Boston have been struggling to attract assets, several other fund groups have picked up their slack and have climbed in overall fund sale standings, according to industry figures.

Online banking will soon no longer be the only means of paying bills over the Internet. At least two mutual fund companies are now building the capabilities to allow investors to pay bills online from their money market fund accounts.

Fidelity Investments of Boston and American Century of Kansas City, Mo. both announced last week that in light of the Electronic Signatures Act taking effect on Oct. 1, they would accept new applications online, without handwritten signatures of any kind. Neither firm is requiring signatures, either at the time of an account opening or later, on hard copies via fax or the mail.

Citigroup of New York is planning to consolidate most of its mutual funds under the Smith Barney brand, according to Ed Giltenan, a spokesperson for SSB Citi Asset Management Group. Citibank and Concert funds will be re-named, merged with existing Smith Barney funds or liquidated by Citicorp, the umbrella company of all three fund families, said Giltenan.

A small fund adviser's lack of marketing for two of its strong performing funds has prompted some industry observers to question if the firm is engaged in a strategy to pump up the funds' performance by keeping the asset level in the funds low.

Charles Schwab & Co. of San Francisco has opened a new call center with 400 employees in Austin, Texas.