Money Management Executive Latest News

When Ryan Jacob, portfolio manager of the Internet Fund of New York, left Kinetics Asset Management this month to start a money management company of his own, the fund appeared to have lost one of its greatest assets. But since that announcement, Kinetics has made a number of moves to forge ahead without its star money manager.

The U.S. Department of Labor in conjunction with the Investment Company Institute and other trade groups is urging employers to use a new form that requires 401(k) providers to make detailed disclosures about their fees.

Mutual fund companies have been slow to offer web sites where shareholders can get access to their accounts and make transactions, according to a consultant who evaluates fund web sites and their services.

A U.S. District Court jury in San Francisco found in favor of the three former independent mutual fund trustees being sued by Louis Navellier and his asset management firm, Navellier Investment Management of Reno, Nev.

Frank Russell Co. of Tacoma, Wash. has teamed up with The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi of Tokyo to create a family of multi-manager funds. This will be the first time that multi-manager funds have been available to individual investors in Japan.

Guinness Flight Global Asset Management has won the license to the Internet Stock Index from internet.com Corp. of Westport, Conn. Guinness Flight has filed with the SEC to create a new no-load fund, the Guinness Flight internet.com Index Fund, which is expected to be available to investors on July 30.

The board of trustees of GE Financial Assurance of Stamford, Conn. has approved a plan to cut the 12b-1 fees on its Class A shares from 50 basis points to 25 basis points and to launch Class C shares on all 17 of its funds. If the SEC approves GE's June 25 filing, the fee cut will take effect Sept. 17 and the C shares will be introduced Oct. 1.

Fidelity Investments of Boston, DLJDirect of Jersey City, N.J., Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco and Speer Leeds & Kellogg of New York plan to launch an electronic trading network. Such computerized trading networks anonymously match buy and sell orders. The companies, which have signed a letter of intent to undertake the project, have not yet named the new venture. It will be the tenth electronic communications networks formed so far.

Dow Jones Indexes of Princeton, N.J., has established a new index that will track multi-national companies. The Dow Jones Titans Index will watch 50 of the world's largest multi-national companies. Both John Nuveen & Co. and Nike Securities L.P. are expected to start products that use the index by the third quarter of the year, according to Dow Jones Indexes.

The Internal Revenue Service on July 12 approved Kansas City Southern Industries' plan to reorganize its financial service companies into a separate division. Kansas City Southern of Kansas City, Mo., expects the spin-off to take place in the fourth quarter. The new company will be named Stillwell Financial and will consist of Janus Capital Corporation and Berger Associates, both of Denver, Colo., Nelson Money Managers of Chester, England and Kansas City Southern's 32 percent ownership in DST Systems of Kansas City, Mo.