Money Management Executive Latest News

State Street Global Advisors of Boston is proposing changes to its S&P 500 index fund that it says could further shrink the fund's low expense ratio.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter of New York has proposed merging its smaller, poorer performing Mid-Cap Dividend Growth Fund into its $1.8 billion Mid-Cap Equity Fund, according to a preliminary proxy statement filed with the SEC Feb. 11. Mid-Cap Dividend Growth invests at least 65 percent of its assets in mid-cap companies that pay dividends. Mid-Cap Equity invests the same minimum percentage of assets in mid-cap growth stocks, according to the SEC filing.

The Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa. has filed registration statements with the SEC to introduce two new international index funds and to add an institutional share class for three existing international index funds, the company announced last week.

Ariel Mutual Funds of Chicago is trying to make its case for long-term value investing by quoting Vince Lombardi in its recently-released fourth-quarter report. This plain English approach has succeeded in slowing outflows from Ariel's value-style funds, according to the firm.

INVESCO Funds Group of Denver, Colo. has announced the promotion of two wholesale representatives to sales managers. Jim Sandidge will oversee the company's western region while Tony Rogers will oversee the eastern region, the company announced. The move is part of a planned doubling of INVESCO's wholesale force from 12 to 24 by the end of the second quarter. Rogers has been a wholesale representative since 1981. Sandidge has been a wholesale representative since 1986.

The SEC may require mutual fund companies and broker/dealers to tell investors more about the special payments fund companies make to broker/dealers for selling funds.

In 1990, Bob Goldberg was ready to retire from John Hancock of Boston. He had served as vice president, secretary and treasurer of John Hancock distributors and was instrumental in developing the company's mutual fund business. But Goldberg was not quite ready for a life of leisure. So, he accepted the challenge of becoming the first president of the National Investment Company Service Association of Wellesley, Mass.

The 1990s may be remembered as the decade of the B share when mutual fund historians look at trends in how funds were sold through intermediaries.

Pioneer Group of Boston has hired Salomon Smith Barney, a unit of Citigroup and Merrill Lynch, both of New York, as investment bankers to help the firm consider its "strategic alternatives." Those alternatives could include a sale of the firm.

BOSTON - The SEC may ease its original stand on the amount of personal information mutual fund directors must disclose in SEC filings about the business relationships of members of their extended families, according to a high-ranking SEC official.