Special Program Root Tag

American Beacon Advisors has launched the American Beacon Global Real Estate Fund, which aims to deliver high total return through a combination of current income and capital appreciation and which will be sub-advised by CB Richard Ellis Global Real Estate Securities.

Warburg Pincus will invest $230 million in Primerica, the mutual fund and life insurance sales unit of Citigroup, in return for a 23% stake, filings show.

AdvisorShares and Peritus Asset Management have just filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to offer the Peritus High Yield ETF, an exchange-traded fund that will invest in senior and subordinated corporate debt and loans across various industries and maturities with the goal of delivering both capital appreciation and high current income.

ProShares is planning to offer four international sector and three U.S. regional banking exchange-traded funds, which will bring its stable of ETF offerings to 99.

Direxion has launched a pair of long and short exchange-traded funds linked to the performance of short-term U.S. Treasuries, the Direxion Daily 2-Year Treasury Bull 3x Shares and the Direxion Daily 2-Year Treasury Bear 3x Shares. The funds are linked to the one-security NYSE Current 2-Year U.S. Treasury Index.

Ten of Vanguard’s index funds and corresponding exchange-traded fund share classes are now linked to updated MSCI 25/50 sector indexes that have expanded their concentration of holdings to comply with IRS diversification rules.

Direxion, in conjunction with sub-advisor IPOX Capital Management, has launched the Direxion Long/Short Global IPO fund, which will provide retail investors with institutional-style access to investment opportunities in the global initial public offering and spin-off market. The long portion of the portfolio will invest in promising IPOs one year old or less, and the short portion will seek out stocks in their second to fourth year that are expected to underperform.

Total assets in exchange-traded funds fell 5.8%, or $45 billion, in January from a month earlier, according to monthly data from State Street.

Mutual funds brought in $377 billion in assets last year, while exchange-traded funds attracted $104.1 billion and separately managed accounts garnered $80 billion, according to Morningstar’s Fund Flows and Investment Trends 2009 Annual Report.

529 college savings plans have attracted $100 billion in 11 million accounts, roughly a quarter of the money parents in the U.S. have set aside for their child’s education. But that’s far short of the hundreds of billions of dollars asset management firms expected them to attract.

Hedge fund assets grew last year to $1.96 trillion, levels not seen since the pre-crisis days of 2007, according to Hennessee Group LLC, an adviser to hedge fund investors.

Financial advisers are looking forward to 2010. In fact, 68% recently surveyed define their 2010 business mindset as one of acceleration and growth. Curian Capital LLC, an indirect subsidiary of Prudential, surveyed more than 1,800 independent financial advisers in an effort to gauge how the market downturn impacted their practices during 2009, and determine how it will shape their priorities for the year ahead.

Citigroup has hired Sanjiv Sawhney as global head of fund services, a new position. He was previously head of fund services operations at JP Morgan and is returning to Citi, where he began his career and served for 15 years.

More than one in four, 28%, of wealthy Americans with at least $500,000 in investable assets and annual incomes of $150,000 or more have or plan to cut back on charitable giving due to the economic climate, PNC Financial Services found in a survey of 1,046 affluent adults. And only 13% have increased or plan to increase their giving.

While the average American family believes $1 million is the gold standard for retirement savings, a new survey by Scottrade Advisor Services finds that most independent advisers think this number is probably way off.

Being owned by a bank has handcuffed many mutual fund units. Just don’t tell that to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s J.P. Morgan Funds.

Natixis Global Associates, in conjunction with Absolute Asia Asset Management, has launched the Absolute Asia Dynamic Equity Fund, a multi-cap fund that will invest in Asian companies, ex-Japan. It is the first fund offered in the United States by the Singapore-based Absolute Asia management team, which has been headquartered in the region for more than a decade.

Delaware Investments has launched the Delaware Diversified Floating Rate Fund, which will invest across the fixed income investments spectrum for those investors looking for exposure to floating-rate securities; at least 80% of its assets will be in floating-rate securities.

After it improved slightly in January but still remained in neutral territory, Rydex AdvisorBenchmarking’s Adviser Confidence Index fell nearly 2% in February to 107.18, with 65% of advisers saying they are concerned about unemployment, and 50% pointing to the federal budget deficit.

Transamerica Asset Management and Wellington Management have partnered to offer the Transamerica WMC Diversified Growth Fund, the first and only U.S. mutual fund based on Wellington’s diversified growth strategy, which has amassed $6.5 billion in separately managed accounts.