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Private equity firm JC Flowers has backed out of a deal to purchase Refco, Financial News Online reports. Meanwhile, competitive bidders are offering as much as $100 million more than JC Flowers' $768 million.

Arrivato Advisors has announced the launch of the Arrivato Dow Jones U.S. Target Date Funds, a family of five target-date funds based on the Dow Jones U.S. Target Date Indexes.

Bain Capital, Blackstone Group and Texas Pacific Group met with New York Stock Exchange Chairman John Thain in June to propose that the three private-equity firms take out a stake in NYSE, the Big Board reveals in a regulatory filing in connection with its planned merger with Archipelago Holdings Inc.

U.S. investment companies are boosting technology investments after years of slow growth, CMP TechWeb reports, citing data from TowerGroup.

AUSTIN - Karen Becker has met the "new" Securities and Exchange Commission, and she says it's a more thorough, more knowledgeable regulator than it was prior to the scandal.

T. Rowe Price Group announced Monday that James S Riepe, vice chairman, plans to retire from the firm at the end of this year, and that Edward C. Bernard will be his replacement.

The American Stock Exchange is considering going public to compete with listed opponents and raise money, Financial News Online reports.

Securities and Exchange Commission attorneys filed a legal brief late Friday arguing that that SEC's pending requirement that mutual fund be chaired by independent outsiders, was an appropriate action.

Citigroup is having trouble convincing mutual fund shareholders to approve its swap with Legg Mason Inc., The Baltimore Sun reports. The $3.7 million deal will remake Legg Mason into the fifth-largest money manager worldwide, while Citigroup, which is transferring $437 billion worth of assets to Legg Mason, will get its brokerage business.

Fidelity Investments' efforts since May to improve, attract more assets and once again become the No. 1 fund company in the nation, seem to be working, Reuters reports.

AUSTIN - Daniel F.C. Crowley, chief government affairs officer for the Investment Company Institute in Washington, reported on Monday that the investor-friendly GROWTH Act is gaining momentum in Congress, but factors outside the mutual fund industry's control could postpone action on the capital gains tax relief bill.

Interactive Brokerage Group has submitted a bid to buy the Refco's regulated futures-trading arm that is higher than the one offered by private equity fund J.C. Flowers & CO. and a group of investors, The Wall Street Journa reports.

Twenty-two percent of companies are now looking into completely outsourcing their retirement, health and welfare benefits, in an effort to cut costs, a survey by Diversified Investment Advisors. Eleven percent have begun the process of total benefits outsourcing(TBO), Diversified Investment Advisors found.

Instead of waiting for long-term bond prices to go back up, some mutual funds are offering investors the option of going short, The Wall Street Journal reports.

According to an expert on shareholder activism, many angry investors are looking into taking legal action against mutual funds holding Refco. Lawsuits have already been filled against Grant Thornton, Refco's auditor, as well as investment banks who disregarded the initial public offering by the futures broker a few months ago, and now more lawsuits are a possibility, MarketWatch reports.

On the heels of the SEC announcing last Wednesday its plans to establish guidelines on how soft dollars may be spent, Boston-based Fidelity Investments has decided to cut down on soft-dollar arrangements, a practice common in the mutual fund industry, in an effort to set an example for other firms, Reuters reports.

Hedge funds investing in emerging markets have outperformed their benchmarks this year, according to data from Hedge Fund Research. Hedge funds investing in emerging markets delivered returns of 14.7% in the first nine months of the year, as tracked by the HFRI Emerging Markets Total Index. This number contrasts with the 7.3% increase in the HFRI Fund Weighted composite index in the period.

Offshoring in the financial services industry is expected to double by 2008, but firms that approach the strategy solely from a cost-savings perspective, or that fail to address quality control, turnover and compliance costs, run the risk of missing out on its greatest competitive advantages - and not realizing those cost savings.

One year after assuming their new roles, chief compliance officers at mutual fund advisory firms shouldn't expect to be off the hot seat anytime soon. There are still policies and procedures to review, update and expand upon where gaps are found; reports to generate; compliance checks and balances to assess; and a myriad of other unforeseen issues.

Fidelity Investments of Boston last week launched the Fidelity Advantage Class shares on its five Spartan index funds, which will provide qualified investors with a bonus 30% reduction in fees, a remarkably lower price than what the rest of the industry offers on index funds. Some industry observers view the move as a strike against increasingly popular exchange-traded funds and industry rival Vanguard of Valley Forge, Pa.