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State Street Corp. of Boston plans to buy International Fund Services, a Dublin alternative investment and hedge fund manager and custodian. The purchase, State Street's second in the hedge fund business and its first in global custody, rounds out the services State Street needs to enter the hedge fund management and custody business, according to the firm.

Starting a new mutual fund in these volatile times isn't the most enviable of tasks, but it's one that Kent Gasaway relishes.

As President Bush laid out a tough new stance last week on the increasing number of accounting scandals that plague Wall Street, fund executives turned their attention to accounting practices. Many executives said that portfolio managers have been too lazy about assessing the risk involved with the stocks they choose.

In a recent advertisement, Lincoln Financial Group of Hartford, Conn., told financial planners, "Customized financial solutions. Just another way we make you look like the good guy." In fact, many separately managed account providers have begun to make separate accounts' customized features the cornerstone of their marketing efforts, according to Cerulli Associates of Boston.

ARLINGTON, Va. - Mutual fund companies have done a good job of banking assets in 401(k) plans, but with so many people retiring or changing jobs, fund companies often lose those assets at those rollover junctures. With some strategic marketing and some personal advice, however, funds can increase their chances of hanging onto money that rolls out of 401(k) plans, reports Boston-based Cerulli Associates in a recent study, "The Retirement Income Market and Asset Retention Strategies."

The site now includes educational and sales materials, industry news and detailed information on plans that they serve.

The initial public offering market has dried up over the past two years, and the reputation of the industry has been tarnished by questions about IPO laddering schemes and the conflict of interest of sell-side analysts. But one small mutual fund is registering signs of improvement for the going-public market - the $20 million IPO Plus Fund, run by Renaissance Capital of Greenwich, Conn.

It always comes back to performance.

An announcement by 401(k) plan provider CitiStreet last week that it will provide workers with expanded advice about investment choices in their retirement plans may be pushing government regulations to their limits in an aggressive effort to retain rollover assets, observers said last week.

As a result of a 10% decline in assets since the end of 2000, John Hancock Funds of Boston is on the hunt for a few more outside mutual funds or small fund families that it can acquire and merge into its $18.7 billion family of 50 funds. The fund complex is a wholly owned subsidiary of John Hancock Financial Services, which collectively manages $29 billion in open- and closed-end funds, separate accounts and retirement plans.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has taken action to authorize the industry's first fixed-income exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Until now, ETFs have been based only on equity indexes. Pending completion of the registration process, the new ETFs are expected to be launched in late July.

The mutual fund industry's chief lobby group has sent a letter to a committee of the New York Stock Exchange suggesting that shareholders should have a say in the authorization of stock option plans for workers.

WASHINGTON - In a speech that some thought signaled a get-tough attitude toward the mutual fund industry, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt told executives late last month that the SEC would review distribution fees for mutual funds.

WASHINGTON - Kicking off the 2002 General Membership Meeting of the Investment Company Institute on the heels of recent scandals that have rocked the investment management and accounting industries, ICI President Matthew Fink told fund executives that the mutual fund industry was working hard to protect the interests of shareholders.

WASHINGTON - Saving enough for retirement is tough these days. While there are a large variety of retirement vehicles to choose from and last year's tax bill increased contribution limits, as life expectancies increase, saving for retirement has become a tremendous challenge. Consequently, so has providing retirement-oriented investment products, according to Jonathan Pond, an investment adviser and financial writer in Watertown, Mass.

Two competing bills in the House and the Senate that would reform 401(k) plans to protect investors in the wake of the Enron bankruptcy appear to have polarized legislators. The two biggest points of contention are whether 401(k) investors should be allowed to own company stock and whether mutual fund companies in a plan are capable of providing objective investment advice.

The company has partnered with an information portal for financial advisors to make its services more widely available.

In the wake of the Enron collapse, 401(k) plan providers and plan sponsors have been in a quandry over whether to provide investment advice.

The Securities and Exchange Commission may soon change fund performance advertising rules to ensure that investors are better informed about the most recent performance data available.

More than a decade ago, Fidelity Investments of Boston formed Institutional Retirement Services Co. to target the small-business 401(k) market. Today, with the retirement plan market tighter than ever, fund firms have begun to pursue the ultimate small business: individual 401(k)s.