Mutual funds

New York-based Water Island Capital is reopening its $2.95 billion Arbitrage Fund, which has been closed to new investors since July 19, 2010, on March 15, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing.

Thanks to stagnant interest rates and lingering worries over the Eurozone and other developed markets, the exchange traded fund market in February grew 3.9%, or more than $44 billion assets, over the previous month, according to a snapshot report released by State Street Global Advisors.

The exchange-traded product market reached $1.72 trillion of assets at the end of February, up 12.8% year to date, according to the ETF Landscape report issued by the BlackRock Investment Institute.

Charles Schwab Investment Management, Inc. has filed paperwork with the Securities & Exchange Commission to launch active exchange-traded funds, which are getting a lot of buzz courtesy of PIMCO’s latest offering and iShares’ proposed fund.

Nuveen Fund Advisors and GuideStone Funds garnered the top group honors at the 2012 U.S. Lipper Fund Awards last night.

Investors are much savvier about retirement planning than commonly thought, at least when it comes to target-date funds, according to a research note from investment management company Vanguard.

On the heels of Bill Gross’ latest active exchange-traded fund, BlackRock has thrown its hat into the active ETF space with a proposed offering of its own.

PIMCO’s All Asset All Authority institutional fund received a Gold rating this week from Morningstar Analyst Ratings. The PIMCO fund, managed by sub-advisor Rob Arnott of Research Affiliates, “had its many moving parts moving in sync in 2011,” according to a report by Morningstar analyst Kevin McDevitt.

PIMCO’s All Asset All Authority institutional fund received a Gold rating this week from Morningstar Analyst Ratings—the only fund to do so this week.

Exchange-traded fund sponsor WisdomTree has launched a corporate bond ETF covering emerging market issuers across Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Market volatility severely curtailed revenue growth among asset managers in 2011, while independent managers continued to outperform management subsidiaries, according to a study released by consulting firm Casey, Quirk & Associates LLC.

imensional Fund Advisors has appointed Steve Clark, formerly head of portfolio management, as head of the North American Institutional group. He replaces Dave Schneider, who is retiring.

Lighthouse Partners, a fund-of-hedge-funds and managed account investment adviser has taken a minority stake in 361 Capital, a Denver-based provider of alternative investment mutual funds, separate accounts and limited partnerships to institutions, financial intermediaries and high-net-worth investors.

Santa Fe, NM-based Thornburg Funds has promoted Rob McInerney, formerly a regional consultant, to the role of national sales manager, effective March 1. He will also assume the role of president of Thornburg Securities Corp., succeeding Jack Gardner in both positions.

Mutual funds started February with a roar but ended the month with a whimper.

The Investment Company Institute has promoted Kathleen Joaquin to the position of Chief Industry Operations Officer, replacing 25-year veteran Donald Boteler, who retired earlier in the month.

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary L. Schapiro told a financial services subcommittee of the House of Representatives that the federal regulator intends to spend $100 million of its $1.6 billion requested budget for fiscal 2013 on information systems and another $50 million on modernizing the EDGAR stock information database and www.sec.gov, its public web site.

Huntington Asset Services, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Huntington Bancshares Incorporated, has appointed Joseph Rezabek as president of the company. Rezabek hails from Citi Fund Services, where he was managing director and head of North American Fund Services.

Matrix Financial Solutions has expanded the functionality of TrueOpen, its core mutual fund trading platform, to address growing demands from retirement plan providers and advisors.

Symetra Investment Services, Inc., the broker-dealer registered investment advisor arm of Symetra Financial Corporation, has hired John Forrest to serve as director of business development, responsible for managing relationships, development advisors and managing sales.