Special Program Root Tag

The Vanguard Group has announced that Fortune Magazine has recognized it as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2006. Ranking 60th on the list, this year marks the sixth consecutive year, in which Vanguard has been recognized by Fortune as a top employer.

Victory Capital Management has announced that it will be acquiring Austin Capital Management, a Texas-based firm that will be bringing a new product line and a team of investment professionals to Victory.

Susan Ferris Wyderko has been named acting director of the division of investment management for the Securities and Exchange Commission, overseeing mutual funds and investment advisors, the Federal agency announced late last week.

UBS Financial Services will pay $54 million to settle market-timing charges from the New York Stock Exchange, the New Jersey Bureau of Securities and the Connecticut Attorney General. Under the agreement, UBS will split $49.5 million between NYSE and New Jersey and pay $5.5 million to Connecticut. New Jersey's $25 million share is the largest fine any state has collected in a securities matter.

After faring a stormy sea in 2005, Fidelity Investments, the Boston-based mutual fund giant that turns 60 this year, is working hard to keep investor confidence on course, the Associated Press reports.

Daniel Calugar, the former owner of the broker/dealer Security Brokerage, agreed to pay $103 million in ill-gotten gains and a civil penalty of $50 million to settle charges of late trading and market timing, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced last week. The civil penalty is the largest the SEC has imposed on any person or company in the mutual fund trading scandal to date.

Mutual fund shareholder sentiment was on the rise again in 2006, according to a survey from the Investment Company Institute of Washington, and some experts say it's proof that the industry is making strides at reclaiming its reputation as a noble custodian of Americans' precious investment dollars.

Investors can expect mutual funds in 2006, as in 2005, to continue to chug, but not zoom, ahead, according to senior analysts at Lipper of New York.

Want to invest in Asian securities for your mutual funds? You might want to consider staking claim to an office in Hong Kong or even India in order to cozy up to the Asian investment marketplace.

Reverberations from the collapse of derivatives broker Refco may have put PlusFunds Group on some shaky ground, according to MarketWatch.com. Last month, Refco creditors questioned how the fund manager was able to move $312 million from Refco to a separate brokerage account at Lehman Brothers just days before Refco's $16.8 billion bankruptcy filing last October.

Fiserv Investment Support Reassigns Two Veterans

NEW YORK - Although he stopped short of declaring himself bearish, Merrill Lynch Investment Managers President and CEO Robert Doll expects a decline in the capital markets in 2006, and said that the $500 billion asset manager's plan to re-brand its retail mutual funds is moving forward.

Contrary to popular belief, the nation's largest cities are not home to the best savers, as A.G. Edwards' first ever "Nest Egg Index" reveals.

A penny saved is a penny earned, or so the old adage goes; but, more and more, employers are saving their workers' pennies for them.

An article in the Jan. 9 issue misidentified the $850 million insurance lawsuit settled by Putnam Investments' parent company, Marsh & McLennan. MME regrets the error.

Investors poured $700 million more into Man Group hedge funds in the three-month period that ended Dec. 31, representing more than a three-fold increase over previous quarters, according to Bloomberg.

Canadian banks, which command a 35% market share of mutual fund sales, will continue buying up mutual fund companies, said William Holland, CEO of CI Financial, Canada's second-largest fund firm, according to a report from Bloomberg. In 2000, Canadian banks had a 20% market share.

Boosted by the strategy of its new manager in the last two months of 2005, Fidelity's flagship Magellan fund returned 6.4% last year, The Boston Globe reports. In the first 10 months of the year, the fund was up a mere 1%, but since Harry Lange took over Magellan's helm, the fund rose by an impressive 5.4%.

Brinker Capital, a managed account and mutual fund services company based in Berwyn, Pa., announced a 25% increase in assets under management, making the new total $5.8 billion. Since 2003, Brinker's assets have more than doubled, according to the company.

As the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce continue to battle it out in court over the independent chairman rule that requires 75% of a mutual fund's board, including its chairman, to be independent, a new study on the subject might surprise some in the industry.