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Mellon Financial Corp. has created a new division within its private wealth management unit that will focus on sales, marketing and client service, naming Craig Sutherland as its vice chairman. Sutherland previously was national director and head of Eastern markets for private wealth management. Lawrence Hughes, formerly private wealth chief operating officer, has been promoted to assume Sutherland's previous job, with the title of executive director.

Bear Stearns has finally settled a two-year-old probe into allowing hedge funds to market time and late trade mutual funds by agreeing to pay a $250 million fine, people familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Stock Exchange will announce the settlement later this week, according to the sources.

Canada's largest securities regulator, AMF, has charged Norbourg Asset Management founder Vincent Lacroix with 51 counts, alleging price manipulation of mutual funds and intentionally misrepresenting the fund company's financial statements, according to The Globe and Mail.

We all know what it takes to make a successful investor: diversification and holding for the long-term. So why do so many investors insist upon diverting from that game plan?

As investors look to hedge their bets, they're turning more and more to currency funds, according to Investor's Business Daily.

Online brokerage Amerivest, a subsidiary of TD Ameritrade Holding, is making exchange-traded funds available directly to investors without charging them a commission, The Kansas City Star reports.

The alternative assets group of Toronto-based RBC Capital Markets has launched a diversified hedge fund index comprised of 250 funds, which is about six times larger than other investable hedge fund indexes, according to the company.

One year into a pilot program promoting easy-to-search electronic filings, the Securities and Exchange Commission will host a series of roundtable panels to review the successes of the initiative and plan for its expansion.

Assets are pouring into mutual funds in India, doubling in the past three years to $48 billion, Dow Jones reports. And half of those assets are managed by foreign companies, including Franklin Templeton, Prudential and ING Group.

The nine million shares of Legg Mason that Citigroup intends to sell will carry a price tag of $125 a share, Reuters reported Friday.

Mario Gabelli vowed to fight a civil lawsuit and the Department of Justice's decision this week to assume control of the case, which charges him with setting up bogus companies to qualify for small-business and minority discounts on Federal Communications Commission cellphone licenses that the companies later sold for a profit of $206 million, Reuters reports.

Ivory Investment Management has split from hedge fund FrontPoint Partners, a development that could bolster Morgan Stanley's plans to obtain a savvy money manager to help supplant its spoiled bid to acquire BlackRock, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission has plans to propose rules that would require that e-mails at investment advisory firms be retained for a specified period of time and be made available in certain formats. The SEC would also require firms to allow it access to any e-mail messages, including internal communications. It is likely that the staff will make these recommendations by the end of the year, according to Doug Scheidt, associate director in the SEC's office of investment management.

Fidelity Investments reported net profit of $1.3 billion in 2005, up 20% from $1.1 billion in 2004. It was the second-most profitable year in the firm's 60-year history. Funds that Fidelity manages fell 46% to $17.4 billion, primarily due to net outflows of $6.8 billion. However, funds for which Fidelity acts as a custodian in brokerage and retirement accounts rose 17%, helping to boost Fidelity's total assets by 9%, to $1.2 trillion.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has decided to take another look at a portion of its new redemption fee rule, a development that would likely relieve a tremendous burden from the shoulders of the nation's fund companies.

As the soft dollar squeeze forces fund companies to show exactly how they spend their commission fees, they are increasingly relying on in-house research, according to a recent report by Integrity Research Associates.

Reserve Management of New York, advisor to both The Reserve and the Hallmark Series of Funds, filed a preliminary proxy late last month that reveals a slew of problems that the firm is grappling with, some of which could raise regulatory ire and prove to be quite costly.

With assets in and the number of exchange-traded funds continuing to rise, Morningstar is now rating 107 ETFs on the market, based on their risk-adjusted returns in their respective peer groups, as well as their expense ratios. To be eligible for the ratings, which Morningstar is making available to investors at its website at no charge, the funds must be three years old. Thus, Morningstar is rating only 107 of the 201 ETFs sold in the U.S. The ratings are designed to help investors compare one ETF to another as well as to regular mutual funds.

A relatively small number of funds have attracted a large share of capital in recent years, and that could mean trouble, according to Russel Kinnel, an analyst with Morningstar.

State Street Names Analyst New Director of Research