Special Program Root Tag

Janus Capital Group appointed two independent directors to its board. To make room on the board, Helen Young Hayes, whose term expires in May, will step down, the company said. She was a managing director of investments and managed Janus' international stock funds before she resigned last April.

Siebert Financial said Robert P. Mazzarella has been elected to its board and as an independent member of its audit committee.

NEW YORK -- Soft dollars and directed brokerage are appalling and must be eliminated. That's the tune we've been hearing almost uninterrupted for the last several months as regulators and lawmakers have unleashed the hounds on the fund industry. But not all are on board with the efforts to kill the practices.

When you're looking for growth, industries with favorable demographics can make that growth easier. That doesn't mean we at Sterling Advisors won't own stocks that are in industries with more challenging demographics, but we think having a good idea of what the favorable demographic trends are is one helpful starting point.

Bank of America, the nation's third-largest bank, was slapped with a record $10 million fine last week for failing to comply with regulators' repeated requests for information during their probe of improper trading practices.

Ronald Reagan once said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Eventually, the Berlin Wall came down. But for Morgan Stanley, building a wall is the best way to prevent conflicts of interest between its fixed income research and sales departments. That is exactly what it will do, the company said on Friday.

Daniel Calugar, founder of the now-defunct Security Brokerage, requested Wednesday that a Nevada court throw out the charges filed against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

NEW YORK - Soft dollars and directed brokerage are appalling and must be eliminated. That’s the tune we’ve been hearing almost uninterrupted for the last several months as regulators and lawmakers have unleashed the hounds on the fund industry. But not all are on board with the efforts to kill the practices.

Kevin Dunleavy of Merrill Lynch will run that company's new hedge fund client initiative as well as a newly developed committee focusing on hedge funds, Reuters reports, citing a memo it obtained Friday.

Leaders of the mutual fund industry yesterday applauded the appointment of Paul Schott Stevens as the new president of the Investment Company Institute, succeeding Matthew Fink.

Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Ken Lewis may downsize up to 11,000 employees as part of cost-cutting measures aimed at trimming $1.1 billion in after-tax expenses after its merger with FleetBoston Financial, BizJournal reported. Both companies have a combined payroll of 181,000 employees.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the SEC recently questioned ING Group, the European insurer, about market-timing activities within its variable annuities, according to the International Herald Tribune.

The Money Management Institute bulked up its governing body yesterday by electing new members from Eaton Vance, Fidelity Investments, MFS Investment Management and Phoenix Investment Partners.

The SEC, in part of its ongoing crackdown on scandals tied to the mutual fund industry, moved ahead with a lawsuit against Daniel G. Calugar, who in the past two years netted more than $175 million by actively trading investments offered by Alliance Capital and MFS, The New York Times reports.

The rampant market-timing at Pilgrim Baxter & Associates that spurred regulatory action from New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the SEC was motivated by a drive to raise assets and attract a buyer, according to next week’s edition of Fortune.

The Investment Company Institute’s board of governors has elected Paul Schott Stevens to succeed Matthew Fink as president, the ICI announced this morning. Stevens, a partner with Dechert LLP in Washington, will assume his new duties on June 1.

In an open meeting today, the SEC is expected to call for fund manager compensation and holdings to be included in fund prospectus so-called "statements of additional information," The Wall Street Journal reports.

Along with a recent trend among fund companies implicated in the fund scandal to tell their side of the story, Putnam Investments yesterday and today has begun running full-page ads in prominent newspapers, including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Citigroup has named Ali Hackett the head of prime brokerage and global finance sales at the firm, a newly created position, according to published reports.

State Street yesterday said that federal regulators had subpoenaed additional trading information from some of its units, Reuters reports.