Money Management Executive Latest News

Fidelity Investments of Boston last week launched FundsNetwork, an online fund supermarket in the U.K., said Joanne Roddan, a spokesperson for Funds Network, Fidelity's online supermarket in London.

T. Rowe Price of Baltimore, Md. has recruited Salomon Smith Barney of New York to sell 10 of its new advisor share class funds, said Stephen Norwitz, a spokesperson for T. Rowe Price.

The Allied Owners Action Fund, managed by Privateer Asset Management of New York, has targeted a second company under its shareholder activism mandate - Comshares of Ann Arbor, Mich. The fund accumulates stakes in companies it believes are undervalued and then rallies shareholders to press management for changes in hopes of increasing the value of the company's stock. The non-diversified Allied Owners Action Fund, which was introduced March 9, announced the new target company on its website June 2.

Credit Suisse Asset Management/Americas of New York has hired Jim McCaughan as chief executive officer and promoted William Priest to chairman. McCaughan was previously president and chief operating officer of Oppenheimer Capital of New York and Priest was the chief executive officer of CSAM/Americas.

The U.S. House of Representative's approval of permanent normal trading privileges for China late last month places U.S. fund and insurance companies one step closer to competing in a market that could develop into one of the largest in the world, said executives and analysts in the fund and insurance industries.

WASHINGTON - The Securities and Exchange Commission will continue to scrutinize the sale of bonus annuities and could issue clarification of or additional rules for the products, according to commission officials.

The outlook for value fund sales improved slightly in April and there were signs of an increasing demand for value oriented portfolio managers.

Although advertisements and news stories about the latest product developments in exchange-traded funds are rife, there is no data available that allows investors to track the funds, according to mutual fund analysts and executives. That is because fund data and rating services are struggling to determine an accurate method of tracking the funds, they said.

Claims that the Investment Company Institute is violating federal securities laws are a legal longshot, according to mutual fund industry lawyers.

To combat the high turnover rates of customer service and systems personnel, which can run as high as 25 percent a year, Putnam Investments of Boston will hire 200 people to fill these jobs remotely from their homes in Maine, said Karnig Durgarian, senior managing director and chief of operations at Putnam. Studies have shown that the turnover rates of people working from home are only six percent, Durgarian said.