Subject Root Tag

It's separately managed account mania. In the past month alone, three different studies examining managed acount products and prognosticating their impact on the fund world were issued by industry consultants.

Hedge funds may turn out to be a greater competitor to mutual funds than most people expected. While hedge funds are extremely risky vehicles that do not appeal to investors who are interested in safer products, funds of hedge funds offer some of the advantages of hedge funds with an enormous reduction of risk. Although the number of funds of funds is relatively small right now, it's growing, and may soon capture a lot of assets that ordinarily would have gone to mutual funds, say industry observers.

Acquisitions, product consolidation, a shift to outsourcing--it's all part of the plan for Investec's U.S. investment management unit, said its managing director, Royce Brennan.

The retail investment arm is launching a new high-net-worth wrap product that allows financial advisers to build, manage and customize portfolios of funds and individually managed accounts.

New York-based investment advisor Neuberger Berman announced that it will acquire the $800 million in assets managed by Oscar Capital Management LLC. The deal is expected to close by year-end.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is apparently close to starting a review of fund rules. However many industry observers are unsure which rules might be affected, and how fund marketing might be affected in turn.

This year Nuveen Investments launched 18 new closed-end, fixed-income funds. Last year it launched zero.

With U.S. warplanes swarming over Afghanistan and Special Forces troops readying to take to its ground, financial planners have begun to get calls from investors inquiring about defense-related investing.

If fund companies aren't building private wealth management products, they are buying them. A look at some of the recent acquisitions in the fund industry finds that the companies acquired are, in many cases, wealth management firms. And in doing so, mutual funds appear fearful of losing their luster to hedge funds, managed accounts, wrap programs and other wealth products.

Fund mergers have increased recently, and as long as the current market downturn continues, the numbers of mergers will only go up, according to industry analysts.

Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group and Frank Russell announced an alliance in which Fidelity will distribute Russell's new multi-manager separately managed account program through its registered investment advisors and correspondent broker/dealers.

A poor economy and rising unemployment rates are making an already difficult defined contribution market even harder for plan providers. Because plan sponsors are occupied with more pressing business concerns in a difficult economic environment, changing or adding a plan provider to their defined contribution plan is not a priority. That has made gaining market share very difficult for many 401(k) providers, say industry observers.

SEI Investments has launched SEIBusinessBuilder.com to assist planners with marketing and client relationship issues.

In an effort to gain access to the education savings market, investment management companies are increasingly looking to partner with existing state-sponsored "529" college savings plans (See MFMN, 9/3/01). But standards don't yet exist for 529 partnerships, so the nature of the arrangements among these companies is different with each one.

For years, people have gathered in quiet, suburban living rooms to pick stocks and discuss matters impacting markets. They are known as investment clubs, and the communities of investors sometimes manage sound returns based on the notion that many heads are better than one.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's caseload was decimated by the terrorist attack on the World Trader Center, the home of its New York offices.

Roulston & Co. Investment Management and The Hickory Group, two investment advisors based in Cleveland, will merge, the companies announced last week. Roulston & Company Investment Management is the advisor to the Roulston family of mutual funds.

In a deal valued at more than $247 million, asset manager AMG will acquire a majority stake in Freiss Associates, the growth-oriented investment advisory firm best known for handling the well-known Brandywine fund family, it was announced today.

Prudential Financial has appointed Scott Sleyster, the president of its guaranteed products unit, to head the company's retirement services business.

Harvey Pitt has not even been formally sworn in as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, yet already some industry observers are concerned that mutual funds may take a back seat once he takes the wheel.