Special Program Root Tag

Hewitt Associates Names Fradin Chief Executive

Competition on the 529 playground is about to get fierce.

Robust growth in the separately managed account industry is expected to continue in the next few years, driven by new entrants and modified products.

Glencrest Investment Advisors, an affiliate of PFF Bancorp in Pomona, Calif., has found a fast-growing niche: providing active asset management to small and midsize 401(k) plans. The small Claremont, Calif., firm more than doubled its 401(k) assets under management last year, to about $192 million, and Shawn Ecklund, its managing director, said he expects to maintain that pace.

E-Trade Financial reported Wednesday that daily average revenue trades in July were up 0.5%, to 138,367, from June and that retail client assets fell 2.2% in the month, to $176.7 billion.

Assets under management in Chile's mutual fund industry are set to reach the US$16 billion-mark by year-end on the back of strong returns from international instruments, according to the mutual fund association AAFM, Business News Americas reports.

KD Investments, the Slovak-based asset management unit of Slovenian financial company KD Group, has launched an equity mutual fund that will invest in companies in the former Soviet Union, reports See News.

Morningstar is planning to launch a monthly newsletter on exchange-traded funds next month. Called Morningstar ETFInvestor, it will provide research and recommendations on the funds.

Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has launched a new service that helps fund companies meet the Oct. 16 deadline for Rule 22c-2, whereby they must track shareholder data in omnibus accounts to monitor for frequent trading.

Nine Morningstar insiders, two directors and seven executives, are planning to sell their company stock, the company revealed in its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Joe Mansueto, chairman and CEO of the company, will sell up to 700,000 shares.

Pennsylvania is dropping the surcharge it has imposed on investors' contributions to its 529 prepaid college savings plan, which it expects will save investors between 1.8% and 12.6% on their contributions, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Legg Mason and two of its subsidiaries, Western Asset Management and ClearBridge Advisors, will lease 200,000 square feet in the new New York Times building being built in Times Square.

After posting gains of as high as 65% in 2005, hedge funds that invest in Japanese securities are suffering steep declines, The Wall Street Journal reports.

One would think that wealthy people who retire are set for a long and happy retirement. But because many of them invest their nest eggs too conservatively, even they could be ill-prepared for a retirement that could last as long as 30 years, Reuters reports, citing survey by Opinion Research.

The Boston Globe took a look at top mutual fund performers over the past 15 years and found that seven of the 10 highest-return funds were from Fidelity, with the Fidelity Select Brokerage Fund topping the list, with an annualized return of 19.10 percent.

Canadian investors are paying the highest mutual-fund fees across 18 major nations, reports The National Post. They're paying twice as much in fees as American investors, according to a preliminary academic study in circulation.

Hartford Financial Services Group has doubled the pace of its fund sales this year compared with 2005. Second-quarter sales were $2.8 billion. The Connecticut insurer has been able to gain distribution thus far by leveraging the success of its variable annuity business -- it had assets under management of $106 billion at the end of June.

Lincoln National entered into an agreement to purchase approximately 5.5 million shares of its common stock from a third-party broker/dealer using an accelerated stock repurchase program for an initial purchase price of $350 million.

Piper Jaffray announced that it has closed the sale of its brokerage business to UBS.

After five years of increasing sales, the mutual fund industry looks to be losing ground in Canada, Bloomberg reports. Net fund sales for the five biggest banks - including Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce - fell 21% in the first six months of the year to C$5.32 billion from the same period last year, the Investment Funds Institute of Canada said.