Special Program Root Tag

A class action lawsuit against Morgan Stanley disappeared Monday when a Tennessee federal judge dismissed it.

The NASD barred Louisiana broker John Steven Blount Monday from working at any NASD-registered firm for the rest of his life and ordered him to repay $1.5 million, plus interest, for more than $6 million worth of unsuitable annuity sales that brought him $220,000 in commissions.

Executives in the fund industry are split as to whether New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is a friend of foe, according to a preliminary tally of your peers’ votes in the Money Management Executive Fund Scandal Questionnaire.

Fremont Investment Advisors, which runs the Fremont Funds, has drawn the scrutiny of regulators for market-timing arrangements the shop maintained, according to Associated Press reports.

The NASD fined Worldco LLC $1.5 million and mandated a three-year barring of its chief executive officer Monday for not separating business operations from the hedge fund PTJP Partners.

In the latest move of its kind, two veteran Morgan Stanley analysts have left the bank in favor of working in hedge funds, Reuters reports.

After the abrupt resignation of L.C. Kvaal as head of its highly successful International Small Cap Fund, Fidelity Investments has named company veteran Ben Paton his successor, Reuters reports.

Mutual fund manager J. & W. Seligman & Co is the latest firm to cop to abusive trading practices as the company admitted to having four market-timing arrangements in place in the last three years.

CINCINNATI - Although the Investment Company Institute successfully stalled the Baker Bill last spring, Congress is likely to pass and the President is likely to approve the third piece of legislation in the history of mutual funds, ICI President Matthew Fink told the Greater Cincinnati Mutual Funds Association Thursday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer are now investigating banks and specifically whether certain banks violated securities laws by extending credit to cash-loaded improper traders like hedge funds, according to published reports.

Maligned fund giant Invesco suffered another blow Friday when Standard Chartered announced it would stop selling Invesco mutual funds, Reuters reports.

Raymond James owes clients an estimated $6.9 million for failure to apply the appropriate breakpoint discounts, some $3.6 million of which it will recover from financial advisers at Raymond James & Associates and its independent broker/dealer, Raymond James Financial Services. The company said it might also be on the hook for penalties of up to $6.5 million for related enforcement actions by the SEC and the NASD.

In the wake of a massive settlement that forced Alliance Capital to lower mutual fund fees, an increasing number of fund shops, most notably MFS Investments, are cutting back operating expenses charged to shareholders.

In this game of high-stakes "tag," there are no more hiding places and lots of "Its."

It's a tale of two cities. While its certainly not the best of times at Beantown's Putnam Investments, it seems to be the worst of times for the employees at Strong Financial in Menomonee Falls, Wi. Both firms are heavily involved in the scandal plaguing the fund industry and have some striking similarities in circumstances. But their fates, and those of their workers, seem decidedly different.

Assets under management in the mutual fund industry grew by $82.4 billion, or 1.2%, to $7.235 trillion in November, according to the Investment Company Institute.

In what should have been a three-month red carpet rollout to an 80th birthday party, the mutual fund industry is not even thinking of a gala. Instead, it is pondering mistakes of the recent past and reforms for the near future.

Harris CEO Raitt Named President of Oakmark Funds

NEW YORK - As far as the executive suite is concerned, it's almost as if the fund scandal and corporate governance issues did not happen.

"Move SMAs into the mass-affluent Northern Lights," is the battle cry of Franklin Templeton Investments private client group of Toronto, Canada, the high-net-worth unit of Franklin Resources of San Mateo, Calif..