Money Management Executive Latest News

Water Island Capital of New York has filed a registration statement with the SEC to offer the Arbitrage Funds. The funds will invest at least 65 percent of their assets in companies involved in mergers or acquisitions.

Franklin Resources of San Mateo, Calif., adviser to the Franklin Templeton Funds and Mutual Series Funds, is planning to buy at least part of the asset management unit of Nedcor Investment Bank Holdings Limited, a South African banking group based in Johannesburg, South Africa, according to a source close to the negotiations. A Franklin Templeton spokesperson declined to comment.

ING Groep of Amsterdam has signed a definitive agreement to buy Aetna Financial and Aetna International of Hartford for $7.7 billion - $5 billion in cash plus the assumption of $2.7 billion of Aetna's total $5 billion of debt.

In an effort to establish a greater level of board independence, the trustees of the Putnam Funds of Boston last week passed over George Putnam III for the chairmanship and instead named John A. Hill chairman, said Laura McNamara, a company spokesperson.

Four socially-responsible fund companies co-sponsored a conference on workplace standards earlier this month in Shanghai, China, the firms announced. The conference's goal was to improve factory manager's knowledge of international human and labor rights and standards and to eliminate sweatshops in China.

Jim Loveridge has joined IFS Financial Services of Cincinnati as senior vice president for financial institutions, a new business unit at IFS. Loveridge previously was senior vice president for retail marketing, at Integrity Life Insurance Company of Lousville, Ky. IFS' parent company, Western-Southern Life Assurance Company of Cincinnati, acquired Integrity Life Insurance in March. IFS is a distributor of fixed and variable annuities and mutual funds.

Although many registered investment advisors are cautious about selling an advisor class of shares with a 12b-1 fee attached to a no-load fund because it poses a potential conflict of interest, no-load firms are having some success selling the class to registered advisors, according to industry executives.

The business climate for foreign mutual fund companies in Japan has recently been improving, executives said at a US-Japan fund management conference earlier this month in Tokyo.

The Vanguard Group's new Admiral share class that it will launch later this year will serve to reinforce the firm's name while protecting its buy and hold investors from rising redemption rates, according to industry analysts.

Washington - Proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rules prohibiting independent auditors from providing other types of consulting services to their audit clients should be adopted, two mutual fund industry executives told the SEC last week.