Special Program Root Tag

How, after alienating a good majority of the nation's most powerful financiers, is Eliot Spitzer well on the way to raising $50 million for his New York gubernatorial campaign? While his real-estate developer father largely backed his bid for New York Attorney General, who's bankrolling him this time?

WASHINGTON - For chief compliance officers, dealing with an SEC examination can be a painstaking process with many pitfalls.

The Investment Company Institute is urging regulators to designate the Internet as the primary medium for point of sale disclosure on the costs and conflicts of interest associated with broker-sold mutual funds.

The United States Justice Department has joined the Securities and Exchange Commission and NASD in investigating gifts Jefferies brokers allegedly gave to mutual fund companies, the firm indicated in its annual report. Regulators are also looking into potential violations related to travel and entertainment expenses.

Morgan Stanley CEO Philip Purcell, under pressure to leave the company, traveled to Boston earlier this month to meet shareholders, including Fidelity Investments.

A Google link that would take anyone doing a search on American International Group, to a sponsored link to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's gubernatorial campaign was suddenly yanked last Wednesday following an inquiry by the New York Post. The link brought surfers to www.spitzer2006.com, CNN reported.

GAM, the global investment management firm with $38 billion in assets, could be in for a rocky ride and possible monetary damages if its new U.S.-based hedge fund restructuring initiative trips over hedge fund behemoth Man Investments' pending patent filed just weeks ago.

The mutual fund industry continues to shrink even as assets swell.

Less than half of the chief compliance officers hired in the past year would unconditionally accept the same jobs today, according to survey data provided exclusively for Money Management Executive.

Mark Pennington, a partner at Lord Abbett, succeeds Peter Muratore as chairman of the Money Management Institute.

Influential mutual fund tracker Morningstar has upgraded its perspective on Bank of America's scandal-plagued Columbia Funds, which after a 2004 merger with FleetBoston now includes the equally troubled Nations Funds.

Friestad Becomes SEC's Assoc. Enforcement Chief

Steve Gresham doesn't mince words.

Money Management Executive and Source Media are accepting nominations for the third annual Fund Operations Awards.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a 2006 Democratic candidate for governor in New York, said his office reaped a record level of financial recoveries in 2004.

Fidelity Investments, already top dog among U.S. mutual fund complexes in the retirement field, is positioning itself to get an even bigger chunk of the market.

San Antonio, Tex. - President Bush's plan to fix Social Security through the creation of individual accounts does not solve the problem and may make matters worse for some, according to Kenneth S. Apfel, the Sid Richardson Chair of Public Affairs at the University of Texas and former Commissioner of Social Security. Apfel discussed his analysis of the Bush plan at the Retirement Conference Series, sponsored by LIMRA, LOMA and the Society of Actuaries.

Federal regulators are sending a new message to some of the industry's best performing funds: double-check your math.

Jeff Thomas Allen, the former CEO of Advanced Investments Management (AIM), a Pittsburgh, Pa..-based firm that once managed more than $6 billion in pension assets, has agreed to pay a $175,000 fine to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission allegation of fraudulent trading. Allen, who has not admitted wrongdoing, has been barred from trading.

Spectrem Group said Wednesday that its affluent investor index fell two points in March.