Special Program Root Tag

NEW YORK - Fund companies that might be ramping up for a rush by investors from value to growth would be wise to listen to Warren Koontz, Jr., manager of the Loomis Sayles Large Cap Value Fund.

There was a time when investing was considered a man's job. No more.

Driven by the desire to further grow their wealth, investors with portfolios of $1 million or more are increasingly turning to alternative asset classes, including private equity, hedge funds and real estate, a survey of high-net-worth investors by Northern Trust of Chicago reveals.

The Department of Justice is going to follow up on a civil lawsuit against Mario Gabelli, accusing him of creating bogus minority-owned and small-business companies to qualify for millions of dollars worth of discounted FCC licenses for cellphones and other communications devices, only to turn around and sell those licenses for a $206 million profit.

In 2005, 222 mutual funds were merged into others, a 66% increase in fund mergers from the year before, The Wall Street Journal reports. And with merger and acquisitions activity increasing among investment management firms, experts expect the trend to continue in 2006.

Mutual funds did not do so well in February. However, due to their impressive performance in January, mutual funds have notable year-to-date result, according to Business Week Online.

Not only has the U.S. Chamber of Commerce taken the Security and Exchange Commission to court over mutual fund governance, the business advocacy group is now publicly criticizing the Commission's actions towards companies as too harsh, the Associated Press reports.

TIAA-CREF has promoted chief investment officer Scott C. Evans to executive vice president of a newly created asset management unit and chief executive officer of the New York company's Teachers Advisors Inc. and TIAA-CREF Investment Management.

Randall Fons, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Denver regional office, will step down from his position later this month to become a partner with Morrison & Foerster. Fons has been head of the SEC's central regional office since 2000, in charge of enforcement and examination programs in Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.

Even as Baby Boomers focus on preparing for retirement, many are overlooking debt, The Wall Street Journal reports. In fact, Americans' debt is growing as fast as their wealth. For instance, while housing values increased 71% over the past five years, mortgage debt increased 75%. And over the past five years, consumer debt has increased 27%.

Mutual fund portfolio managers might want to think twice before investing in shares of NYSE Group, which began trading Wednesday, MarketWatch reports. The Securities and Exchange Commission might require funds that own 5% or more of the stock to get its approval before sending trades to the Big Board.

A number of fund companies are offering specialized emerging-markets funds that focus on Brazil, Russia, India and China, or "BRICs," following a Goldman Sachs report predicting the economies of these nations will produce the fastest growth in the world in the coming 40 to 50 years, The Wall Street Journal reports. In fact, Goldman projects that by 2050, only the economies of the U.S. and Japan will be greater than the four BRICs combined.

Although exchange-traded funds continue to grow in popularity, few brokerages offer a dedicated ETF center on their website where investors can see quotes, news, screeners and educational tools about the products, according to "ETF Centers Revisited," a new report from Corporate Insight. Of the 17 brokerage companies that Corporate Insight follows, only five offer ETF centers, up from four in 2004.

Janus Capital's board of directors approved $500 million worth of repurchases of its stock. This comes on the heels of an earlier approval of $500 million in stock repurchases that expires at the end of 2006, of which $124 million had not been exercised as of Dec. 31.

Fidelity Investments has just announced that a retired couple will need $200,000 over the course of their golden years to cover healthcare costs, not including long-term care in the case of a serious illness. The estimate assumes that the retirees are not covered by employer-sponsored healthcare but factors in Medicare Part B and D premiums, co-payments and premiums, as well as the out-of-pocket costs of prescription drugs.

General Motors announced Tuesday that beginning Jan. 1, 2007, it will put the freeze on its pension plans for its salaried employees, thereby reducing its pension liabilities by a total of $1.6 billion. The new plan does not, however, affect union workers.

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 in Chicago.

Charles W. Brady, 70, who has served as chairman of the board of directors of Amvescap since 1992 and founded Invesco, one of Amvescap's six main brands, will step down from his position at the conclusion of the firm's annual meeting on April 27, the firm announced Friday.

Smith Barney's Aggressive Growth fund leads the field in the 2006 Mutual Fund All-Star ratings from USA Today.

Although there has been a good deal of noise in the past few years over mutual funds offering performance-based fees, mutual fund companies seem more to be talking the performance fee talk than actually walking it, MarketWatch reports.