Special Program Root Tag

A proposal in the new fund disclosure bill that would preclude anyone with business or personal ties to a fund company from serving as an independent member of the board has many in the fund industry hotly contesting the idea, Reuters reports.

William Ennis, previously president and chief executive officer of Evergreen Investments, will join Morgan Stanley’s investment management division as president of global services, including sales, distribution and operations. The division has $421 billion in assets under management.

Investors increasingly view alternative investments, including hedge funds and real estate, as a safe investment due to their low correlation with the stock market, according to the 2003 World Wealth Report, published by Merrill Lynch and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young.

Lockwood Advisors, a subsidiary of Bank of New York, announced Tuesday that it is offering three registered, no-load hedge funds from Ivy Asset Management, itself a subsidiary of the Bank of New York and Oppenheimer/Tremont. This is part of the firm’s plan to expand beyond separately managed accounts to appeal to a wider reach of financial advisers (see MME 6/20/03).

Navellier Management, which manages separately managed accounts and mutual funds, is merging two of its funds into a Touchstone Investments fund but will remain as subadvisor to the combined fund.

Fidelity announced Monday it has eliminated the 3% sales load on five of its biggest diversified equity funds, including the Fidelity Magellan Fund. The four other funds that now have no sales load are the Fidelity Contrafund, the Fidelity Contrafund II, the Fidelity Low-Priced Stock and the Fidelity New Millennium funds.

John Hancock Life Insurance Co. is selling its group life insurance business to Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.

With the recent market rebound, investment-banking executives believe asset managers will be exploring new acquisitions, Reuters reports. However, these new transactions aren’t likely to be complete buyouts or large takeovers but acquisitions of specific business areas, also known as lift-outs.

Ever since the market recuperated March 11, the average technology stock fund has risen 36% and the Nasdaq Composite Index has gained 32%, The Wall Street Journal reports. Surprisingly, Internet stocks are once again hot.

During the recent recovery of the stock market, growth mutual funds that exchanged their tech holdings for more conservative offerings are not posting the gains they would have hoped for, Dow Jones reports.

Industry Supports Much Of Mutual Fund Disclosure Bill

Financial services giant Citigroup is being sued by an investor who claims that she was duped into putting her money into a pricier share class of mutual funds.

Sister companies AIM Investments of Houston and INVESCO Funds Group of Denver, both investment management units of AMVESCAP, the U.K. holding company, are growing closer every day.

Internationally, separately managed accounts are growing at a steady pace, unlike the leaps and bounds their stateside counterparts are experiencing.

The outlook for the global fund industry appears to have some rather ominous storm clouds ahead.

Separate account managers are earning high marks when it comes to articulating their knowledge of financial markets and the investment process, but considerable improvement is needed in terms of the support they provide advisers.

Several mutual fund companies and investment advisors that have taken steps to comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission's proxy voting reporting rules are ill prepared to continue the task significantly beyond the Aug. 6 deadline.

Charles Schwab's Mutual Fund OneSource fund supermarket volume of 55,700 transactions in May increased 1% from May 2002, but declined 3% from April 2003. Total trades of 199,600 during the month were up 11% from a year ago and up 13% from April 2003.

ING Funds has selected the Bank of New York to provide fund accounting, custody, securities lending and foreign exchange services for the ING Funds, comprising approximately $40 billion of mutual fund assets. The assets represent those of ING Funds and its affiliated fund complexes, including the former Pilgrim and Aetna Funds, as well as various variable annuity portfolios.

Financial Research Corp. (FRC) has contracted with Ibbotson Associates to have Ibbotson analyze its advanced research reports for mutual fund wholesalers and provide five sales ideas for each one. Fund companies can customize each report with their own name and logo.