Money Management Executive Latest News

The SEC has denied several fund companies' requests to raise redemption fees above two percent because a hike would go beyond the costs associated with redeeming shares and would instead act as a penalty, said Cindy Fornelli, senior advisor to SEC director Paul Roye.

MFS Investment Management of Boston is asking shareholders to approve the merger of the MFS Intermediate Income Fund into the MFS Limited Maturity Fund, according to a proxy statement filed with the SEC March 1. If shareholders approve the proposal at a meeting scheduled for May 18, it will mark the first fund merger for MFS since 1992, said David Oliveri, an MFS spokesperson.

Gross revenues of Fidelity Investments of Boston for 1999 surged 31 percent to $8.85 billion, from $6.8 billion the year before, according to Fidelity. Net revenues topped $1 billion, according to the firm.

Shareholders are being asked to approve the union of the $1.1 billion, 16 mutual fund group managed by Countrywide Investments of Cincinnati, Ohio with the eight-fund Touchstone Fund group currently managed by Touchstone Advisors, also of Cincinnati.

More than one-third of people who invest in IRAs, plan to use them as investment vehicles to bequeath money to their children or other heirs, according to a survey by American Skandia Life Assurance of Shelton, Conn.

New York Life Insurance Company of New York will merge its eight investment management and consulting subsidiaries into a single asset-management unit, to make a more concentrated push into the mutual fund and annuity businesses, the firm has announced.

The Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa. dropped to 28th in net sales of long-term funds in January, according to estimates by Financial Research Corp. of Boston, a fund tracking and consulting firm. Vanguard had net sales of only $227 million in January, down from nearly $7 billion in net sales in January 1999, according to FRC. Vanguard ranked 7th in sales in December, according to FRC estimates.

Eaton Vance Distributors of Boston, the broker/dealer subsidiary of Eaton Vance Corp., has promoted William Gillen to national sales director of both the independent/financial institution and brokerage sales groups. He was previously national sales manager of the independent/financial institution sales group.

WASHINGTON - The regulators who oversee the mutual fund business and the lawyers who advise fund companies are battling about how far the SEC ought to go in regulating mutual fund advertisements.

For the last several years, despite the booming American economy, heads of bank investment sales departments have not seen the good times reflected in their paychecks. On average, they did not receive an increase in base pay in three years. Last year, however, that finally changed.