Mutual funds

Trying to create a new niche in the 529 market and garner some of the assets of the hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations around the world, Seligman Advisors has come out with a 529 college savings scholarship account.

SEI Investments has rolled out Product Analysis, a mutual fund diagnostic tool that can help fund companies and their sales partners find new ways to market their funds by using statistical information and benchmarking tools from numerous data sources. This should prove particularly helpful to mutual fund wholesalers, who have had to build more of a relationship and offer in-depth consulting to their clients, according to SEI.

Brinker Capital has launched a series of principal-protected notes that are fixed income vehicles with market participation through an equity index. The first issue of notes will probably have a participation rate between 75% and 85%. As a fixed income vehicle, the fees associated with the product range between 75 and 90 basis points, as opposed to the 115 to 145 basis point range for equity products. The first offering, which has not yet opened, will close sometime in June, and subsequent notes will be offered periodically, probably every 30 to 60 days.

The Stanton Group and LOMA have teamed up to conduct a new survey that tracks compensation of portfolio managers according to fund performance and size. Results are expected to be published in September and are intended to help fund companies pay portfolio managers on a more consistent basis.

Pax World Balanced Fund last week introduced a contribution program whereby investors can contribute dividends and capital gains for humanitarian aid to Iraqi citizens affected by the ongoing war.

Merrill Lynch will start a donor-advised fund in April that will link the New York brokerage firm with a national network of community foundations to boost its charitable-giving assets.

PlusFunds Group of New York has created a hedge fund for the co-called "mass affluent" that addresses the issue of transparency for investors by being based on the Standard & Poor's Hedge Fund Index.

ICMA Retirement Corp. (ICMA-RC) of Washington, is one of the first to boldly jump into what it's dubbing the "Sidecar IRA," technically known as the "deemed IRA."

Craig Callahan thinks he has something that investors want: a little peace of mind.

In an effort to steer market-weary customers into their pockets, firms are offering principal protection on a number of funds, and some investors have warmed up to the old adage, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

Bill Seale, a principal and director of portfolios at ProFund Advisors of Bethesda, Md., has more than 30 years of experience in financial services. At one point in Seale's career, he was appointed commissioner of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission by then President Ronald Reagan. Seale oversees the management team in charge of ProFunds' 74 specialty bull and bear index funds, two money market funds and 22 variable insurance products, with a total of $2.5 billion under management. The firm's bear funds have the dubious distinction of being some of the best-performing funds so far this year. MFMN Associate Editor Chris Frankie recently interviewed Seale.

Hedge funds are now trying to beat mutual fund companies at their own new game.

Some might argue that the Vice Fund, the latest offering from Dallas-based Mutuals.com, invests in the evils of the world.

Two minds, or more, are better than one.

Charles Schwab Corp. of San Francisco has just re-launched a large-cap mutual fund using a proprietary equity research system.

Responding to a protracted bear market, fund complexes registered 34% fewer new mutual funds with the Securities and Exchange Commission this year than during the year-ago period, according to data provided by New York researcher Strategic Insight.

Bucking the current trend to lower the amount of money investors must initially pony up to qualify for a separately managed portfolio, Fenimore Asset Management (FAM) of Cobleskill, N.Y., has done just the opposite. In June, it raised the minimum it accepts for separately managed accounts to $1 million from the previous $750,000 level.

Starting a new mutual fund in these volatile times isn't the most enviable of tasks, but it's one that Kent Gasaway relishes.

In a recent advertisement, Lincoln Financial Group of Hartford, Conn., told financial planners, "Customized financial solutions. Just another way we make you look like the good guy." In fact, many separately managed account providers have begun to make separate accounts' customized features the cornerstone of their marketing efforts, according to Cerulli Associates of Boston.

The initial public offering market has dried up over the past two years, and the reputation of the industry has been tarnished by questions about IPO laddering schemes and the conflict of interest of sell-side analysts. But one small mutual fund is registering signs of improvement for the going-public market - the $20 million IPO Plus Fund, run by Renaissance Capital of Greenwich, Conn.