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In back-to-back deals Boston investment management firm Eaton Vance Corp. acquired majority stakes in two asset management firms in an effort to ramp up its separate accounts business and pump new products into the financial advice distribution channel.

A House subcommittee approved the Retirement Security Advice Act Thursday afternoon, prompting its proponents to insist that the House will pass it by year's end. It was the quickest markup of a bill in the history of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, lasting a short six minutes. But brewing far from the corridors of those meeting halls is an opposition that hopes for the bill's demise in the Senate.

The reason behind the recent proposal of the New York Stock Exchange to limit how much investment companies can pay in closed-end listing fees is not clear, but chances are it's not out of kindness.

The Investment Company Institute's call last week for less portfolio holdings disclosure is probably the best indication that the Securities and Exchange Commission is getting ready to increase disclosure requirements, according to industry observers.

BOSTON - Exchange-traded funds are approaching their capacity, and the development of new types of exchange-traded products is going to be necessary to sustain growth, according to industry executives who spoke here earlier this month at the Performance Institute's 2001 Summit: Beyond Mutual Funds (assets have grown at an enormous rate over the past few years. Total ETF assets were less than $10 billion in 1997, but have passed the $80 billion mark this year).

The Department of Labor last week endorsed a proposal in the House of Representatives that would allow 401(k) investors to receive advice from employer-sponsored financial planners, giving the initiative renewed momentum and prompting its proponents to assert that the House will pass it by year end.

The American Stock Exchange has created a new business unit to pursue new opportunities for exchange-traded funds and capitalize off of ETF product development, the company announced last week.

As fall approaches, Thomas Clough, the president of New York Life Benefit Services, is excitedly readying a team of marketers to walk into office buildings and talk to workers of all ages and all incomes about their 401(k) plans.

* Increased contribution limits: Maximum annual contributions will increase from the current cap of $10,500 to $11,000 in 2002 and will increase in increments of $1,000 until 2006 when they will hit $15,000. After 2006, maximum contributions will increase in increments of $500 based on cost-of-living increases.

This year's Morningstar conference began with the issuance of a challenge to the fund industry by Morningstar managing director Don Phillips to improve investors' experience with mutual funds.

The mutual fund industry has historically showed its resilience to competitive products and predictions of its demise have always proven false. So it is not likely that several products that have gained recent attention from investors and the financial media will spell the end of the fund industry, said industry executives speaking at the Morningstar Investment Conference last week.

In the burgeoning business of socially responsible investing, companies sometimes employ the help of a board of advisors in choosing stocks. The boards are often made up of experts with commanding resumes. They include professors, politicians and philanthropists.

Hearings are expected to commence soon on a new bill that would allow retirement plan providers to offer advisory services to plan participants, something that is largely prohibited now. Representative John Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce introduced the bill, called the Retirement Security Advice Act, last month.

An NASDR arbitration panel has ruled against Franklin Templeton of San Mateo, Calif. in an arbitration case filed in 1999 against the fund adviser by Daniel Calabria, a former fund executive.

The John Nuveen Company announced it will acquire institutional money manager Symphony Asset Management for $210 million in cash plus potential future growth incentives.

Sagging U.S. and international equity markets are to blame for a 2% drop in retirement assets held in mutual funds last year, according to a report issued by the Investment Company Institute.

While the number of mergers and acquisitions between investment advisors this year has kept up with the fast pace of 2000, the dollar amounts of those deals is down dramatically.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has shut down two illegally run mutual funds and the FBI seized records and data from the Linville Group, the company that ran the funds, according to a SEC official.

BOSTON - Increasingly, competing in the retirement market requires plan providers to offer more than products, according to industry executives. Providers need to market a variety of services to plan sponsors and their participants and provide guidance and information on issues that may not relate directly to investment products, executives said.

NEW YORK - With poor investment management, the mutual fund industry has opened the door for alternative products like Web folios, separately-managed accounts, and exchange-traded funds, according to John Bogle, the founder and former chairman of the Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pa. However, with a return to sound management based on the fundamental principles of investing, mutual funds should be able to fend off these challengers, he said. Bogle spoke here last week at a forum on use of the Internet in financial services sponsored by Forrester Research of Cambridge, Mass.