Special Program Root Tag

John Levin, the embattled chairman and CEO of BKF Capital Group, told shareholders that activist hedge funds seeking to oust him from the board of his asset management firm seek to sabotage long-term growth plans, the New York Post reports.

OppenheimerFunds is planning to launch a new international diversified fund that will invest primarily in other Oppenheimer international funds, the company said in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As Wall Street continues to stabilize after a prolonged bear market and the mutual fund scandal remains top-of-mind among industry executives, the scrutiny behind selecting a portfolio manager has heightened, as has the popularity of the professionals tasked with making such decisions.

Funds sporting religious names may not always answer to a higher power.

While Amerindo Investment Advisors founder and CEO Alberto Vilar anxiously awaits his next day in court, all indications are that his struggling Amerindo Technology fund is gasping its last breaths.

Insurance giant Marsh & McLennan quieted rumors that it was planning to spin off one of its major business units, including fund manager Putnam Investments.

Fidelity Investments, the nation's third-largest mutual fund complex, has embarked on a hiring initiative that would create career stock-analyst posts to oversee its research department.

Purcell Set to Retire Amid Intense Scrutiny

WELLESLEY, Mass. - JPMorgan Funds, Envision Financial Systems and PFPC Worldwide took top honors in SourceMedia's 2005 Fund Operations Awards. Now in its third year, the awards program is sponsored by Money Management Executive, judged by a panel of leading industry consultants and presented annually at the National Investment Company Services Association (NICSA) general membership meeting. As in the past, MME honored industry leaders in three categories: Leadership, Innovation and Efficiencies/Streamlining.

Marsh & McLennan's chief of Global Consumer and Commercial Business John Chippindale is the eighth casualty in the ongoing executive exodus from the investment services giant, in Chippindale's case, to insurance broker Integro, the New York Post reports.

This week was probably not this year's best for MassMutual Financial Group's former chief executive Robert J. O'Connell.

Benefits manager GuideStone Financial Resources has decided to offer online retirement planning advice and guidance solutions from Morningstar Associates, the registered investment advisory unit of Chicago-based fund tracker Morningstar Inc. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The $2 billion Marin Capital, a convertible bond hedge fund management firm based in San Rafael, Calif., is no more.

First-place honors in this years fund operations awards, hosted by SourceMedia and presented by Money Management Executive, will be publicly announced in the Monday edition of MME, the newsweekly devoted to insight and strategies in the investment management industry.

The Hartford Financial Services Group on Tuesday launched the latest installment of its Plan for Life Series, an investment education program designed to help companies that offer 401(k) plans better inform employees on the key aspects of retirement planning and drive greater plan participation.

Individual investors are warming up to a breed of investment vehicle long favored by institutions and the ultra-rich.

Peter Scannell, a whistleblower that cost Putnam Investments $193.5 million in state and federal settlement charges for alleged market timing, on Tuesday, was denied a $15 million reward sought by the former call-center operator in Quincy, Massachusetts, the Boston Herald reports.

OppenheimerFunds is planning to launch a new international diversified fund that will invest primarily in other Oppenheimer international funds, the company said in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The editors of Money Management Executive would like to hear from our readers on the acquittal of former Bank of America broker Theodore C. Sihpol III in what was the biggest criminal case brought against an individual for alleged abuse of mutual fund trading practices.

Pershing, the clearing firm controlled by The Bank of New York, on Tuesday said that it has begun providing broker-dealer and independent registered investment advisor customers with access to specialized research metrics on more than 5,000 stocks worldwide.