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U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon approved a $37.5 million settlement between former employees invested in Enron's 401(k) and Northern Trust, which had been administrator of the plan, the Houston Chronicle reports.

State Street Global Advisors, the investment management unit of State Street Corp., has launched three money market funds in Europe.

Legg Mason reported a 38% increase in earnings to $156 million, or $1.08 per share, in the quarter ended on June 30, its fiscal 2007 first quarter, compared to $112.8 million, or 93 cents per share, in the period a year ago.

A laptop containing information on 6,500 investors' accounts, including Social Security numbers in some cases, was stolen in late May at Old Mutual Capital, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company sent letters to all of the investors informing them of the theft and giving them access to a credit report monitoring service for a year. In addition, Old Mutual told the clients that it has since installed additional security measures on all of its clients' accounts.

Amvescap announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Wilbur Ross' private equity firm WL Ross for an initial $100 million at closing and up to $55 million a year over the course of five years if certain financial targets are met, putting the potential total value of the deal at $375 million. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

As the nation's 77 million Baby Boomers get ready for retirement, insurers are increasingly acquiring asset management companies, Investment News reports.

In less than 10 months, 350 mutual fund companies have signed on to the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation's (FICC) sponsor membership program, granting access $3.5 trillion worth of daily government securities trading.

Waddell & Reed reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Kansas Securities Commissioner over market-timing in its mutual funds between 1995 and 2003, agreeing to pay $50 million in restitution to investors and to reduce fees by $5 million a year for five years.

In an attempt to reach out to investors and boost defined contribution plan enrollment, Nomura Holdings plans to beam investment information to plan participant's mobile phones, according to Nikkei Report.

Although many analysts earlier said they expected second quarter earnings for fund companies to be strong because declining stock markets would not catch up to their asset bases, and therefore their fees, for a few months yet, that is no longer the case.

New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's campaign to clean up Wall Street hasn't stopped financiers from pumping money into his 2006 gubernatorial campaign, according to The New York Times.

ETFs are popular with investors as they offer low fees and they don't have to pay a manager to pick stocks. However, ETFs are increasingly being based on new or custom-made indexes that have the elements of mutual funds, The Wall Street Journal reports. Some new ETFs are based on indexes that operate like traditional mutual funds by actively trying to pick winning stocks.

JPMorgan credit derivatives head Andrew Brindle will hop from the New York bank to a hedge fund across the pond.

Waddell & Reed reached an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Kansas Securities Commissioner Chris Biggs over market timing in its mutual funds between 1995 and 2003, agreeing to pay $50 million in restitution to investors and to reduce fees by $5 million a year for five years.

Now that the Securities and Exchange Commission guidelines on soft dollars are set, experts predict a resurgence in soft-dollar spending, and service companies see an opportunity to help firms navigate the safe harbor.

As regulators wrangle with how individual companies disclose stock options and executive pay, mutual fund experts are now urging shareholders to take a close look at their advisor contracts to see what they are paying the people who run their funds.

One of the hottest selling areas in the mutual fund industry has been exchange-traded funds-so much so that asset managers anxious to enter the market are now developing proprietary indexes of their own on which to base such funds, launching niche sector or leveraged ETFs and even enhancing indexes, selecting from benchmark indexes companies with the largest dividends, revenue, cash flow or capital appreciation potential.

In less than 10 months, 350 mutual fund companies have signed on to the Fixed Income Clearing Corp.'s (FICC) sponsor membership program, granting access to $3.5 trillion worth of daily government securities trading.

Fidelity Brokerage reported its assets in the second quarter rose 21% to $1.5 trillion. Driving those strong sales was money invested in individual retirement accounts, money market funds and Fidelity's target-date Freedom Funds. In addition, more investors are asking for Fidelity's portfolio advisory services.

Legg Taps Hirschmann As Chief Operating Officer