The First Two Decades. And the Next.

Money Management Executive is nearing its 20th year of operation. For two decades, the newsweekly has been providing top executives in the asset management business with the information and insight they need to get their jobs done effectively.

It all started in the early 1990s, the decade when money market funds and 401(k)s became the driving engine of growth. In one of the earlier versions of the newsletter, financial services research firm Dalbar created a trade publication called Mutual Fund Market News, which debuted May 24, 1993. That was later acquired by Securities Data Publishing, then picked up by Thomson Financial. Now SourceMedia publishes the Money Management Executive of today.

At this point, $11.25 trillion is held in mutual funds in the United States. Money Management Executive has been there every step of the way through this tremendous growth-covering the breaking news and the people who make it, as well as providing fresh insights on what's coming next.

In 2012, the asset management industry remains as vibrant and as important to Americans as ever before, if not even more so. Post-financial crisis, recession and market-timing scandal, investors have come to fully appreciate how vital the mutual fund industry is to their retirement savings and to their lives. Not to mention the stability of the capital markets and the continued progress of corporate America.

The candid videos of investors' impressions of fund companies that the Investment Company Institute aired at the General Membership Meeting following the late-trading and market-timing scandal of 2003 were illuminating. While investors had some misgivings, they still retained a modicum of trust.

Today, it is heartening to witness the industry working so diligently, and rightly so, to regain or build the faith of its 90 million investors.

Asset management firms have been accomplishing this by communicating actively to investors about volatility and market events. Firms have been creating alternative and tactical allocation funds. They have been offering more international and global funds. More exchange-traded funds and other low-cost alternatives. Target-date funds with more dynamic glidepaths and income solutions "through," not just "to," retirement.

Money Management Executive, in the years ahead, will continue to report on such critical develpments.

As editor of the publication for the past 10 years, it has been a pleasure and a privilege to have been part of the asset management industry, to have witnessed its challenges and its many triumphs, and, yes, in the end, its good deeds.

As I head off to be an editor at a publishing venture in a different industry, I leave Money Management Executive, and its readers, in good hands.

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