Special Program Root Tag

The board of directors of Associated Banc-Corp. has tapped Paul S. Beideman as its new president and chief executive officer, replacing Robert C. Gallagher, who is stepping down.

Chicago Equity Partners has hired Todd Davis as its new director of national Taft-Hartley client service and sales.

Portfolio Services Group, a subsidiary of The Burridge Group, has hired John Erard as executive vice president and director of sales.

Wachovia Corp. agreed to acquire the retirement-services recordkeeping and third-party servicing business of PFPC, a member of The PNC Financial Services Group.

ETF Advisors, which exchange traded fund authority Gary Gastineau launched less than six months ago with four Treasury fixed-income exchange traded funds, will liquidate the funds May 27 and close its doors.

Dan Geraci is leaving his position as president and CEO of Pioneer Investment Management to become president and CEO of Phoenix Investment Partners, a subsidiary of The Phoenix Companies with $54 billion under management. Geraci is leaving Pioneer after only 18 months. Prior to joining Pioneer, a division of UniCredito Italiano that manages $112 billion worldwide, Geraci was president of Fidelity Private Wealth Management.

Pershing and Merrill Lynch last week announced that Pershing will make Merrill's family of 70 mutual funds available on its supermarket, reaching 4.7 million investors through 850 broker/dealers.

After a five-year slump that lasted through last October, junk bonds have been on a tear over the past six months. "Technically, people would say after such a long run, there is bound to be a pullback," said Erika Safran, a financial planner with Financial Asset Management Corp. "But there are few other investment vehicles out there that provide this kind of yield right now. Over the long term, people are not buying equities," she said. One of the biggest draws to high-yield bonds is their spread over treasuries. While the average yield on junk bonds has fallen since the beginning of the year, it's still high. With the 10-year Treasury yielding about 4%, junk bonds can pay as much as 11%.

Determining the best separate account manager in a particular asset class can be a daunting task for brokers, financial intermediaries, consultants, investors and even other separate account managers who want to check their progress against the competition.

Faced with its weakest quarterly revenue level in over four years and running out of room to cut costs, Charles Schwab said it would look at other ways to increase income and shore up profits.

While fund companies have resisted firing portfolio managers and top executives and have, in fact, rewarded them as well as their directors with equal if not slightly higher salaries (see MFMN 4/14/03), the bear market is beginning to catch up with some.

Funds that trade the most, whose brokerage costs take a big bite out of returns, are performing even worse than funds that trade the least, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing figures from research firm Morningstar.

Northern Trust announced yesterday it is selling Northern Trust Retirement Consulting to Hewitt Associates. The division provides 200 companies and more than one million participants with defined benefit, defined contribution, recordkeeping and customer service, including health administration services for retirees.

Waddell & Reed Financial announced yesterday it will purchase Securian Financial Group’s subsidiary Advantus Capital Management, which has $2.1 billion in assets under management in the Advantus Funds and the Advantus Series Fund, Inc., a family of funds used as subaccounts in annuities and insurance. Those funds are included in products managed by Minnesota Life Insurance Company, another Securian subsidiary.

Mutual fund giant Franklin Resources yesterday said earnings for its second quarter ended March 31 dropped nearly 9% as a continued slowdown in equity markets pared the value of assets under management.

Income, insurance and asset protection will be the name of the game for the 78 million Baby Boomers as they retire, and only those investment firms that can meet these criteria will win the upcoming $11 trillion game.

The tech sector, which has been avoided by fund firms, may promise a strong rebound as tech funds have been the big winner so far this year and many tech firms are reporting robust first-quarter earnings, Associated Press reports.

Dan Geraci is leaving his position as president and CEO of Pioneer Investment Management to become president and CEO of Phoenix Investment Partners, a subsidiary of The Phoenix Companies with $54 billion under management. In his new position, which Geraci assumes in the middle of next month, he also becomes an executive vice president of the parent company.

Federated Investors is committed to expanding in equities despite a three-year bear market, President and Chief Executive Officer Christopher Donahue told Reuters following its earnings report yesterday.

After completing a series of acquisitions to increase its retirement services capabilities, Wachovia Corp. believes it now has the size and the power needed to cross-sell retirement products to its banking customers.