Money Management Executive Latest News

Price is the main consideration of broker/dealers in their selection of insurance and financial service carriers, according to a recent study. Service, speed in making underwriting decisions and back office efficiency are also major considerations.

NEW YORK - Those financial services firms that will thrive in a world dominated by Internet commerce will have to become aggregators of information from many providers.

With the recent downturn in the fortunes of the equity markets, there has been little cause for levity, but the Monument Funds Group provided a source of amusement to some financial analysts when it announced a three-for-one share split for its extraordinarily successful Internet fund.

John Hancock Funds of Boston announced that it has formed a joint venture with Indocam Asset Management of Paris that will develop and distribute investment management products for the Japanese domestic market.

NEW YORK - Extended trading hours may require a second, perhaps even a third, shift of mutual fund portfolio managers, compliance officers, lawyers, service providers and back-office personnel.

Firms that sell their funds directly to investors are breaking into three groups, a stratification of the direct sales market that is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future, according to a mutual fund marketing and distribution consultant.

Phillip Goldstein, principal of Opportunity Partners of Pleasantville, N.Y. and an outspoken closed-end fund activist, is on yet another campaign against a persistent discount to net asset value in a closed-end fund. The target is Advantage Advisers, the U.S.-based adviser to the $94 million Mexico Equity and Income and an affiliate of CIBC Oppenheimer in New York. ACCI Worldwide, S.A. de C.V. of Mexico, also being targeted, provides investment advisory for the fund's Mexican investments.

NEW YORK - The plain English prospectuses that the SEC will require fund companies to use beginning Dec. 1 under the new Form N-1A regulations will be educational and helpful for investors but may expose mutual fund companies to disclosure liabilities.

Five independent fund trustees have won a small victory in a lawsuit originally filed against them as well as Investment Adviser's, Inc., the mutual fund adviser in Minneapolis, Minn., and the IAI Value Fund. Investment Adviser's is a subsidiary of Lloyds TSB of London.

Toronto - The Canadian fund industry's hottest new product trend will make it easier for foreign-owned firms to compete in Canada, a senior fund executive told the annual conference of the Investment Funds Institute of Canada.