Money Management Executive Latest News

Roger T. Servison is managing director and executive vice president of Fidelity Investments of Boston and president of Fidelity Investments Brokerage Services Japan. Servison will discuss globalization in the mutual fund industry at The National Investment Company Service Association's operations conference this week in Miami. Servison recently discussed the benefits and difficulties of trying to expand fund businesses abroad with Mutual Fund Market News reporter Mike Garrity. An edited account of their conversation follows.

A survey of 131 full-service brokerage firms found that 18 percent are offering investors on-line trading in order to minimize the risk of losing market share, according to Weiss Ratings of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. This is the first time Weiss Ratings has conducted the survey, a company spokesperson said.

While the SEC works on developing a rule relating to how the industry should help investors understand after-tax returns, fund companies are beginning to publish the returns as part of their marketing strategies, industry executives say.

Funds sold through intermediaries are beginning to provide shareholders with access to their accounts through the Internet. Some investors can even buy and sell funds on the web without the help of their brokers.

Investors put more than $30 billion into the technology sector last year, accounting for more than 26.8 percent of all equity dollars, according to AMG Data Services of Arcata, Calif. It is little wonder since it s impossible to pick up a personal finance magazine without finding a headline announcing the astronomical returns of hot tech stocks.

In October, in conjunction with proposed regulations, the SEC announced the formation of the Mutual Fund Directors Education Council, a regulator-inspired initiative that will be administered at Northwestern University in Chicago. David S. Ruder, a law professor at Northwestern and former SEC chairman from 1987 to 1989, will chair the council that will consist of fund industry executives, lawyers and independent directors.

Two branch plant operations of major U.S. fund complexes were among the top three market-share gainers in Canada in 1999. Fidelity Investments Canada and AIM Funds Management, both of Toronto, ranked second and third in picking up share.

Starting this month, both domestic and global asset management companies in Japan will launch a wave of investment trusts, or mutual funds, investing in Japanese equities aimed at Japan's retail market.

Two U.S. companies are preparing to export one of the mutual fund industry's most widely recognized innovations - the mutual fund supermarket - to the United Kingdom.

Valuation by a third-party of the underlying assets in corporate loan funds received a boost in early February when one of the largest managers of that type of fund announced it was outsourcing the pricing of the assets in three of its loan funds.