Money Management Executive Latest News

Viking Mutual Funds, a new firm in Minot, N.D., is now offering its first three funds, which the SEC approved on Aug. 3. They are Viking Tax-Free Fund for Montana, Viking Tax-Free Fund for North Dakota and Viking Large-Cap Value Fund.

E*Trade Group of Menlo Park, Calif., filed with the SEC in early August to offer two new funds, one based on e-commerce and a second based on businesses in Europe, Australia, Asia and the Far East.

Oppenheimer Funds of New York recently filed with the SEC to introduce two new funds, the Trinity Growth Fund and the Trinity Core Fund.

Delaware Investments of Philadelphia has found someone to run its mutual fund unit after the departure of its chief executive officer Jeffrey J. Nick in June.

Salomon Smith Barney and SSB Citi Asset Management Group of New York have selected First Data Investor Services Group of Westborough, Mass., to provide recordkeeping and administrative services for a new 401(k) program geared for small businesses called (k) Choice.

The $56 million USLife Income Fund, a closed-end fund managed by Variable Annuity Life Insurance Co. (VALIC), a Houston, Tex.-based unit of American General Annuity Insurance Co., may soon be facing the fight of its 27-year life.

GE Financial Assurance of Stamford, Conn., is taking a stake in a new mutual fund distribution model.

Mutual fund marketing and compliance executives seize on SEC regulators' every word, much as portfolio managers scrutinize even an offhand remark from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. So, a SEC compliance director's recent admonition about the allocation of initial public offering shares had mutual funds wondering if the SEC was planning to regulate this area.

Taking a tip from its variable annuities, Aetna Life and Annuity of Hartford, Conn., recently introduced a mutual fund that provides a guarantee of principal against a possible market downturn.

Investors of the Firsthand Funds' Medical Specialists Fund are in for a surprise. Kendrick Kam, one of the fund's two portfolio managers and president of Interactive Research Advisors, the fund's adviser, is launching his own investment advisory firm and intends to take the $6 million fund with him.