Special Program Root Tag

Mutual fund company Franklin Resources has named Martin L. Flanagan and Gregory E. Johnson co-chief executive officers, effective Jan. 1, 2004. Current CEO Charles Johnson will continue in his role as chairman.

State Street Research has named Kevin N. Wilkins head of distribution for both institutional and retail products. He reports to Richard S. Davis, president and chief executive officer.

The Managed Funds Association has elected Adam Cooper, the senior managing director and general counsel of Citadel Investment Group, to be its chairman.

Joseph H. Jones has been promoted to senior vice president, managed services, at Access Data Corp., from senior vice president, professional services. In this new role, Jones is responsible for business continuity and disaster recover services and data backup.

Wall Street marveled last week at how Bank of America's gargantuan purchase of FleetBoston Financial Corp. creates the second-largest bank in the United States. But little has been mentioned about how it will result in the fourth-largest fund complex in the country.

After six years and millions of dollars in legal fees, the final round of the much-publicized corporate governance battle between Navellier Management of Reno, Nev., and the independent trustees of Navellier's mutual funds may soon be over.

The newest report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) shows that between 2000 and 2002, the total retirement plan participation rate dropped from 44.1% to 41.8%.

Most stock mutual funds, 96.3%, rose during the third quarter of 2003, according to Weiss Ratings. Average gain was 5.24%, lower than the 16.38% of the previous quarter.

Matthew Fink, president of the Investment Company Institute, made an obvious reference to a recent filing by the Jacob Internet Fund during the ICI’s conference call on mutual fund reforms Thursday.

Massachusetts’ pension fund trustees reportedly decided Thursday to pull their funds from Putnam Investments, in light of the fund trading investigation. State Treasurer Tim Cahill told Reuters: "[Putnam] allowed market timing to happen and possibly harm our retirees. We won’t stand for that."

The Investment Company Institute held a conference call Thursday spelling out three ways mutual funds can thwart market timing.

The Securities and Exchange Commision says a former employee at Fleet’s Buenos Aires office let his family in on a little secret last Friday – that his ex-company was about to be purchased by Bank of America.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday he plans to formally charge Richard Strong, chairman and founder of Strong Financial, with using inside fund information to take $600,000 in market-timing profits between 1998 and 2001.

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced Wednesday he plans to formally charge Richard Strong, chairman and founder of Strong Financial, with using inside fund information to take $600,000 in market-timing profits between 1998 and 2001.

After realizing that disappointed informants – most notably Peter Scannell, the phone representative in the Putnam Investments case – are taking their knowledge to state authorities, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the manner in which it deals with information received in the ongoing mutual fund scandal, Reuters reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission indicted Edward J. Strafaci, a former manager of a prominent convertible arbitrage hedge fund with Lipper & Co., with two counts of securities fraud and two counts of investment advisory fraud. In total, they carry a maximum prison term of 30 years and $2.5 million in fines. The firm is one and the same company where founder Kenneth Lipper lost millions of dollars running a hedge fund for the rich and famous, including Julia Roberts, Liam Neeson and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

In waiting three years to disclose his firm’s managers’ profits stemming from improper trading, Putnam Investments CEO Lawrence Lasser’s leadership was questionable, analysts and investors said Friday, Reuters reports.

CheckFree shares jumped 12% Monday, and were still up 8% Tuesday, as Bank of America’s largest bill-paying service looks to be adding Fleet to its customer line amid the pending buyout by BofA.

Although Putnam Investments had numerous stopgap measures to prevent market timing, it failed to establish a way to detect it in individual accounts within omnibus brokerage accounts or at the participant level in 401(k) plans. The nation’s fifth-largest mutual fund company also was aware that two of its chief investment officers were guilty of market timing as long as five years ago – yet it did nothing immediately to stop them. Nor did it order them to return the $700,000 in profits they had made.

Capital Markets Subcommittee Chairman Richard H. Baker (R-LA) will hold a meeting Tuesday to discuss whether mutual fund trading tactics that have been brought to the forefront as a result of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, have disadvantaged long-term investors.