Subject Root Tag

J.P. Morgan Investment Management of New York is selling its 50 percent share of DKB Morgan, a mutual-fund joint venture with Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank of Tokyo, according to Chris Cosentino, spokesperson for J.P. Morgan. The company declined to disclose the asking price for its share.

The SEC will not aggressively enforce the recently adopted Rule FD, or fair disclosure rule and will only prosecute those cases that are clearly in violation of the rule, said Steve Cutler, a deputy director for the SEC's division of enforcement.

CHICAGO - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is not likely to back down on its pending controversial after-tax performance requirement. This was the impression that Susan Nash, the SEC's associate director of the division of investment management, gave at the Investment Company Institute's tax and accounting conference here last week.

CHICAGO - The SEC will be focusing on issues concerning independent directors, a new audit guide, a two percent decrease in capital gains taxes, international SEC examinations and proper valuation, according to SEC officials and industry executives at the ICI tax and accounting conference here last week.

First Union Corp. of Charlotte, N.C. has formed a partnership with Stephen Dalton, current manager of the Evergreen Select Secular Growth Fund, to form ForeFront Capital Advisors, a minority-owned institutional money management firm that will be based in Philadelphia.

The president of the $105 million closed-end Mentor Income Fund, turned up the heat on a simmering proxy battle

MetaMarkets.Com of San Francisco filed with the SEC Sept. 8 for a new fund that will invest in IPO's and new companies involved in developing products the company believes will lead to technological, social and economic change, according to the SEC filing.

The SEC adopted new rules last week regarding the electronic filing of form ADV that will require all advisers to begin filing Part I of the form electronically by January 2001, the commission announced.

Firstar Funds of Milwaukee has filed a proxy statement with the SEC to merge three fund families. The directors of Firstar Funds, Mercantile Mutual Funds, and the Firstar Stellar Funds approved a plan this summer to combine the three fund families to form Firstar Funds, according to the filing.

Putnam Investments of Boston has struck an alliance with a Toronto-based money manager to enable it to pick up the pace of its expansion in the Canadian market.

Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Co.'s increased buyout price of Phoenix Investment Partners of Hartford, Conn., from $12.50 to $15.75 a share, may not have been enough to stop a class-action lawsuit filed against both firms, according to E.F. Goulart, a spokesperson for Phoenix Investment Partners.

Asset management buyers beware. The high premiums that acquirers have been willing to pay for growth-style or publicly-traded firms may soon prove to be too high, as these two brands of asset management firms may soon be out of favor.

The Securities and Exchange Commission's recent Fair Disclosure Regulation has prompted U.S. fund managers to demand more accurate reporting from European companies, according to a study of U.S. fund managers by Broadgate Consultants of New York.

American Century Investments of Kansas City, Mo., could land a windfall of 401(k) business as a result of the merger between J.P. Morgan & Co. and Chase Manhattan Corporation, both of New York, said a spokesperson for American Century.

Exchange-traded funds could turn out to be "the most significant new product category" of the decade, according to Financial Research Corp. of Boston. They will "continue their recent dramatic growth rate for many years to come," according to a recent FRC report. Any fund complex that wants to appeal to a broad investor base should probably add the products to its offerings, the report said.

If Ted Benna, the originator of the concept of 401(k)'s, has his way, 401(k)'s could become completely flexible, portable, and participant-directed within the next ten years.

MAXFunds.com of Ann Arbor, Mich., an online mutual fund analysis firm, has acquired the mutual fund information site, Findafund.com of Los Angeles, for an undisclosed price, according to MAXFunds.com. The sites will be combined into one that will provide comprehensive fund coverage, said Rick Baggenstoss, director of marketing at MAXFunds.com.

Founders Asset Management of Denver, adviser to the 11 Dreyfus Founders Funds, has fined tuned its Code of Ethics which governs when and how employees may make personal securities trades. The disclosure was made in a prospectus amendment filed with the SEC Sept. 1.

Credit Suisse Group of Zurich, Switzerland has agreed to purchase Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette of New York for $11.5 billion, or $90 a share, the companies announced last week.

Churning abuses by broker/dealers usually involve variable annuities or other insurance products, which is why industry attorneys were surprised when the SEC announced last week that it had fined Dean Witter Reynolds, now part of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter of New York, nearly half a million dollars for failing to prevent mutual fund churning by one of the firm's Atlanta brokers.