Donohue's Task: Repair Investor Trust

With Andrew "Buddy" Donohue taking the helm as director of the Security and Exchange Commission's division of investment management yesterday, industry insiders have begun conjecturing as to what kind of leadership he will provide the mutual fund industry.

While many of his predecessors had distinguished careers at private law firms, elsewhere in the SEC, or with another regulator, Donohue previously served as general counsel for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, and, previous to that, as general counsel for OppenheimerFunds. Executives believe that real-world experience will enable the new director to view the industry from investors' point of view and help it to restore investor trust.

"He's the first in a while to come to this position with live, real-world experience from the fund industry," fund consultant Geoff Bobroff told MarketWatch. "His connections will hopefully mean he comes with knowledge, not that he can be influenced" by his years of working inside the industry.
Certainly, Donohue comes at a time when the division of investment management has a number of unresolved issues to settle, including the independent chairman rule, point-of-sale disclosure, soft-dollar restrictions, 12b-1 fees, the 4 p.m. EST "hard close," redemption fees and disclosure on manager compensation.

"There are a lot of loose ends from the fund scandals," said Russel Kinnel, head of fund research at Morningstar in Chicago. "There's more work to be done."

The staff of Money Management Executive ("MME") has prepared these capsule summaries based on reports published by the news sources to which they are attributed. Those news sources are not associated with MME, and have not prepared, sponsored, endorsed, or approved these summaries.