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At least one U.S. exchange has begun negotiations with the Financial Times Stock Exchange of London for the licensing rights to list exchange-traded funds that will track a new series of socially-responsible indices offered by FTSE, said Will Oulton, president of FTSE North America in New York.

American Century of Kansas City, Mo. has become the latest in a series of no-load fund companies to add C-shares, or level loads, to some of its funds.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's most recent letter to industry CFO's warns investment advisers and managers against falsely claiming that their performance history is in compliance with industry standards.

While the stated reason for Stilwell Financial's decision to buy back Janus employee stock was to redistribute equity within the company and offer existing managers some liquidity, the company's actual motives are a subject of speculation among industry observers.

Sloan Financial Group of Durham, N.C. has filed a lawsuit against a former employee charging him with breach of contract, committing fraud and conspiracy, and embezzling funds while he managed The New Africa Opportunity Fund, a $120 million private equity fund that was introduced in 1997.

The U.S. House Financial Services subcommittee on capital markets, insurance and government-sponsored enterprises, chaired by Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.), will review securities-disclosure rules this year, Baker announced last month. Among those to be reviewed will be the "Regulation Fair Disclosure" that the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted last year.

AIM Management Group, the Canadian operations of AIM Funds of Houston, announced that it has settled out of court a lawsuit it brought against a former employee, Derek Webb, and C.I. Fund Management of Toronto, according to a joint release from the companies. The terms of the settlement are confidential, the companies said.

Turner Investment Partners of Berwyn, Pa. will add three value funds and one bond fund to the firm's growth and fixed-income mutual funds, according to the company.

In a departure from its growth orientation, Janus Capital of Denver plans to offer its first value fund on May 1, according to a preliminary prospectus filed Feb. 14 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Online portfolio products, derided by the Investment Company Institute of Washington D.C. as unregulated mutual funds, got a strong endorsement last week when it was revealed that Fidelity Investments of Boston and Charles Schwab of San Francisco would begin offering the products to investors.

Driven by investors' desire for asset-based fees and advice from investment professionals, assets in mutual fund wrap programs increased 21.3 percent in 2000 over 1999, according to Cerulli Associates of Boston.

Mutual fund shareholders are increasingly wary about taxes on their investments and say that taxes are an important investment consideration, according to a recent survey.

President Bush has designated Laura Unger acting chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing Arthur Levitt who stepped down Feb. 9.

The BISYS Group of Little Falls, N.J. has announced that it will acquire Boston Institutional Group of Boston, an outsourcing services provider for mutual fund complexes, for $35 million. The purchase will add 30 major mutual fund complexes to BISYS's customer list, according to the company. The transaction is expected to be completed by May, according to BISYS.

Over the past year there has been a lot of talk about exchange-traded funds. Industry conferences have been held on the subject, the media has written widely about them and analysts have researched them. But, are they really worth all of the attention? Do they really pose a threat to mutual funds? After all, total exchange-traded fund assets are equivalent to less than one percent of total U.S. mutual fund assets.

NEW YORK - Offering account aggregation can be a good method of marketing a mutual fund family, however there are pitfalls that can undermine the benefits of the arrangement. That was the message conveyed by industry executives at a conference here earlier this month on mutual fund systems and technology sponsored by Marcus Evans of Chicago.

AIM Management Group of Houston has filed to register a new closed-end mutual fund that will cater to wealthy investors seeking alternative types of investments.

The American Stock Exchange has announced that it will begin trading the Cohen & Steers Realty Majors Index Fund, a new exchange-traded fund offered through Barclays Global Investors of San Francisco.

The Evergreen Funds has introduced the Evergreen Premier 20 Fund, a concentrated equity mutual fund. The fund is a multi-cap, multi-sector portfolio with four share classes and it will invest in 20 to 40 stocks selected by four Evergreen managers, according to the company.

The recent decision of The Investment Company Institute, the industry trade group in Washington, D.C., to report exchange-traded fund flows is significant because it marks the industry's acceptance of a non-traditional fund product and could promote wider acceptance of the product, according to industry analysts.