Money Management Executive Latest News

Barclays Global Investors - the giant institutional money management firm in San Francisco - is planning to offer 51 exchange-traded index funds, a lineup that is expected to raise the firm's presence among retail investors and increase competition in a slice of the open-end index fund market.

A handful of mutual fund companies have begun supplying investors with quarterly statements that list their individual rates of return, and other fund companies are expected to follow suit. Most mutual fund companies simply provide investors with return rates for all of the funds in a complex.

Shareholders suffered another in a string of losses in cases they have brought challenging the independence of mutual fund directors.

David Butowsky and seven colleagues who, as a group specialize in mutual fund law, changed firms last month, moving to the New York office of Mayer, Brown & Platt of Chicago.

Texas money manager J. Paul Hamilton is getting into a part of the mutual fund business that does not get a lot of attention - the irrevocable trust business.

When it comes to selecting an investment adviser to manage the diminutive but fiercely independent Investors Research Fund of Santa Barbara, Calif., the board of directors takes its job very seriously.

At least two intermediary-sold mutual fund advisers have introduced advertising that spoofs online investing.

Morgan Stanley Dean Witter of New York plans to introduce a growth fund that will invest in the companies at which teenagers spend their money.

The median compensation for investment professionals at mutual fund companies, a group that includes portfolio managers, analysts and top executives, is $196,000, according to a study made public July 20. The median pay for people with these titles at pension consulting groups is $95,000, according to a survey of more than 8,500 investment professionals sponsored by the Association for Investment Management and Research of Charlottesville, Va., and Russell Reynolds Associates of New York.

The Investment Company Institute of Washington, D.C., has suggested changes in an SEC rule proposal governing how mutual funds oversee their securities held in foreign countries. The ICI said it was troubled by language in the proposed amendment to rule 17f-5 of the Investment Company Act and a proposed new rule 17f-7. Together, the rule proposals, which require a fund's global custodian to monitor the risk of using sub-custodians in foreign countries under certain circumstances, could effectively prohibit funds from investing in some countries, the ICI said. The SEC should adopt language in the rule making it clear that funds could use a foreign sub-custodian, despite risks associated with the firm, the ICI said in a letter dated July 15 to the SEC.