Special Program Root Tag

A day after Strong Capital Management’s founder resigned, the firm announced it has hired Goldman Sachs to find a buyer, as the firm struggles for survival. According to one estimate, the firm is worth $1 billion – if outflows are stanched.

Putnam Investments has expanded its effort to assure long-term investors it has their interests at heart by applying to more of its funds a 1% redemption fee on the short-term fund trading known as market timing.

When asked about late trading, several lawyers told hedge funds and other traders that even certain trades taking place at 5:45 would be considered legal, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Van Kampen Investments will not permit any new investors to buy into its Van Kampen High Yield Municipal Fund, the company announced Monday. Effective this coming Friday, only existing shareholders will be allowed to invest in the fund.

Invesco CEO Raymond Cunningham got numerous warnings on the dangers and fallout from market timing but permitted it willingly, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said yesterday, as he and the SEC filed fraud charges against both the firm and Cunningham.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has said it lacked sufficient staff to catch many of corporate America’s wrongdoers over the last few years, may lose $30 million from its fiscal 2004 budget because it did not hire new staff quickly enough this year, the Financial Times reports.

Richard S. Strong resigned as chairman, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of Strong Financial Corporation yesterday. Kethhen J. Wessels, former president of the Dain Rauscher Wessels Capital Markets division the investment banking firm Dain Rauscher, is now chairman and CEO. Richard T. Weiss, 12-year veteran of Strong, is now CIO.

Despite rising interest rates, Moody’s Investors Service predicts leverage will remain a net positive for closed-end funds deep into next year.

Nelson Information, a subsidiary of Corporation, issued its quarterly performance rankings for the investment management industry on Monday.

Alliance Capital has named an independent chairman of the board of a number of its funds, according to an SEC filing Monday.

Van Kampen Investments will not permit any new investors to buy into its Van Kampen High Yield Municipal Fund, the company announced Monday. Effective Friday, Dec. 5, only existing shareholders will be allowed to invest in the fund.

By misrepresenting the value of bond funds, the hedge fund giant Clinton Group has alarmed the industry more than even the current mutual fund trading practices scandal.

Alliance Capital has named an independent chairman of the board of a number of its funds, an SEC filing Monday indicated.

Invesco Funds Group is the next fund company to face securities fraud charges, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning, in an expose on how some of the firm’s fund managers fought with top executives over their decision to permit market timing.

Individual investors will be represented for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange board of executives, the board voted late last week.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer arrested three former executives of Security Trust Co. on felony charges last Tuesday. His suit charges the men with grand larceny in the first degree, for stealing more than $1 million.

Cigna Corp.'s sale of its pension and 401(k) business to Prudential Financial for $2.1 billion in cash vaults Prudential into the top tier of the country's leading retirement services and products providers. The transaction, expected to close early next year, will plump Prudential Retirement's assets to nearly $120 billion and expand its participant base to 2 million.

While many of the firms implicated in the fund scandal are worrying over civil and criminal charges, the publicly traded companies are fretting over their market value. The day after it acknowledged it might have permitted five institutional clients to market time its Excelsior Funds, Charles Schwab's stock lost nearly 8%, or $1.4 billion of its market value, while American Express and PNC Financial Services Group, which also said they are being investigated, lost around 1% apiece.

Morningstar has recommended that investors dump shares of 11 PBHG funds after its founders were charged with securities fraud for allowing two of the firm's clients to trade billions of dollars in and out of its funds.

Who says a lion and a bear can't cohabitate?