Special Program Root Tag

Mango Joins Touchstone As External Wholesaler

While a number of fund companies set up in-house TV studios during the heady 1990s to take advantage of the booming market, a second wave of firms building studios has begun. But this time, the main objective is to compete and distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

It turns out, affluent Americans are not so different from the Average Joe.

Fidelity Investments expects its Advisor 401(k) platform to maintain its strong recent growth pace but says it does not look for an extra boost from recently enacted pension legislation.

Northern Trust has consolidated its two fund administration offices in Dublin and plans to open another office in Limerick, where it will employ 300 or more executives.

The New York Stock Exchange yesterday released an investor primer on ETFs, "What You Should Know About Exchange Traded Funds," the sixth in its ongoing

While the Securities and Exchange Commission continues to receive comment letters on the independent chairman rule--and has yet to indicate when it might reach a decision on the hotly contested matter--those pro and con the measure continue to speak out, the Associated Press reports.

The Bank of New York will sell its European-based mutual fund software business to Australian company Bravura Solutions for $60.2 million, Crain's New York Business reports. Bravura is a software development company that serves pensions, life insurance and investment management firms throughout the world.

International investing in exchange-traded funds has just gotten easier for Barclays Global Investors clients. Barclay's iShares unit has launched 12 exchange-traded funds on a new multi-currency service at the London Stock Exchange to enable investors to buy them in dollars, according to Reuters.

CIBC Asset Management announced Wednesday it is offering a hedge fund-of-funds with a low minimum requirement of only $5,000. Managed by Gottex Fund Management, the fund seeks to generate growth while preserving capital by using market-neutral strategies that can capture returns in markets where traditional investment strategies cannot.

A report from the Boston College Center for Retirement Research shows that the returns investors earn in 401(k)s are at least one percentage point lower each year than the returns they would earn in a defined benefit pension plan.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into backdating stock options has extended to more than 100 companies and it will be pressing additional charges in the near future, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox told the Senate Banking Commission yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A lawsuit against American Century Investment Management charging that the company imposed excessively high mutual fund fees on three of its funds--and challenging the $1 billion in fees those funds charged between 2003 and 2006--has been dropped.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on Friday that it will not contest a judge's decision that it didn't have a case against former CIBC managing director Paul Flynn for allegedly helping hedge funds to market time and late trade mutual funds.

Mark Hurant, a former broker at Bear Stearns, has filed a $30 million arbitration claim with the NASD on the grounds he was wrongfully terminated from the firm in 2003 for facilitating market timing, The Wall Street Journal reports. Half of that claim is for compensatory damages and half is for punitive damages.

Moody's Investors Service has begun rating the operational risk of hedge funds, beginning with Sorin Capital Management, The Wall Street Journal reports. The ratings takes into consideration a variety of factors, including back-office systems, hedges against sudden losses and executives' backgrounds. Moody's gave Sorin a rating one notch below its highest rating.

First American Funds is touting a new fund it launched in June as one that can meet the two greatest needs of retirees: current income and the opportunity to grow assets, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Few funds have had as wild a ride or are such a study in contrasts as the Jacob Internet Fund, New Jersey's Daily Record reports.

Call it the $3 billion conundrum. The consultants, academics and financial firms working with the SEC and other regulators to determine who should receive the $3 billion-plus collected from the market-timing scandal--and how much--continue to wrestle with the problem, The Baltimore Sun reports.

Edward D. Jones reached a tentative settlement on nine class-action lawsuits for not telling investors it accepted revenue-sharing payments from mutual fund companies to promote their funds, the company announced last Thursday. The settlement still must be approved, however, by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.