Special Program Root Tag

Amid an uptick in the stock market, 2003 was also a year in which 401(k) plan participation increased slightly, a recent survey finds.

AIM Investments Chief Investment Officer Ed Larsen has taken a leave of absence to resolve regulators’ inquiries into his role in market timing violations at the firm, the company announced in a letter to shareholders on its Web site Monday. Larsen made the request on his own, the company said.

Eliot Spitzer’s crusade to clean up the mutual fund industry is far from over. The determined New York attorney general, who has arrested eight fund employees and put one behind bars as part of a widespread investigation of trading abuses, asserted that there is more work to be done, Bloomberg reports

Canada’s mutual fund industry experienced net outflows in September for the first time in a year, Reuters reports.

Institutional investors are hinting at forgiving Putnam Investments for allowing itself to become a key player in the far-reaching mutual fund scandals that, according to regulators, siphoned off profits from long-term investors, Reuters reports.

Reserve Funds purchased three stock mutual funds from two First Republic Bank subsidiaries, Trainer, Wortham & Co. and Froley, Revy, Reuters reports. Reserve, best known for creating the first money market mutual fund, plans to acquire additional stock funds, the company said. The firms did not reveal terms of the acquisition.

MFS Investment Management has introduced the MFS International Diversification Fund, a fund-of-funds that will invest in five equity styles: growth, value, large cap, small cap and emerging markets.

Scandal-tainted mutual fund firm Pilgrim Baxter & Associates announced Friday that it has changed its name to Liberty Ridge Capital, in a move the company said "signifies a new direction for the firm, which over the past year has implemented several new strategic initiatives." Invesco announced a similar move, changing all its funds into AIM Investments funds.

The top mutual funds in many major categories have fees that hover above their categories’ averages, Investor’s Business Daily reports, citing Morningstar data.

In its widely reported probe of four top Canadian mutual fund firms, the Ontario Securities Commission has announced that market timing did not take place at any of them, as far as they can see. The probe, however, does not yet seem to be complete.

In a year filled with securities industry scandals and settlements, the Securities and Exchange Commission has uncovered a new source of potential conflicts of interest. It could be yet another reason to expand the already overwhelming number of disclosures required of investment advisors and broker/dealers.

Bank of America will shift 10 of its top executives to Boston as part of a consolidation of its wealth and investment management divisions into that city. The Charlotte, N.C.-based company had already moved the leader of the division, Brian Moynihan, so the announcement was not exactly a surprise. The move comes a month after Massachusetts officials questioned whether the firm, after its merger with FleetBoston, turned its back on employment pledges by cutting jobs in its already existing Boston office in favor of movement into its Charlotte headquarters. Of the 10 executives, seven will come from the company's New York office, two from Charlotte and one from Baltimore. Employees reporting to those executives will also shuffle into Beantown.

Having watched a number of mutual fund companies mishandle inquiries from securities regulators for the past 12 months, fund-tracking firm Morningstar knew what to do when faced with its own brush with the law.

A new bill banning the sale of a certain type of mutual fund on military bases drew unanimous support from a House panel Wednesday, as lawmakers look to protect young American troops from shady sales practices and ill-suited investment products.

Dire prognostications that the slew of new strict and costly regulatory requirements will drive small-fund managers to bail out from the mutual fund business in droves, have not materialized. At least not yet. But new rules have caused advisors to take a fresh look at their fund business.

The National Association of Securities Dealers has widened its inquiry into sales of 529 plans by investment advisors and brokers, more than tripling the number of firms under scrutiny to 20. The regulator began its fact-finding investigation in June of 2003 with an analysis of six large broker/dealers.

Wilmington Announces Expansion, New Hires

As significant federal regulation passed earlier this year begins to take effect, industry professionals are seeking greater guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission on specific reporting mandates and examining the benefits of implementing optional requirements.

MME: The financial sector has always had a guarded approach to speaking with the press, but you say firms have been unusually shy of the media as of late. How do you explain this trend?

Don McMullen, high-profile head of Wachovia Corp.’s capital management wing, will retire effective Dec. 31 and receive a $7.7 million cash buyout, the Charlotte Observer reports.