Veteran Tax Lobbyist Joins FPA: Veteran tax lobbyist William R. DeReuter has joined the Washington staff of the Financial Planning Association as assistant director of government relations.
DeReuter will be responsible for developing FPA positions on federal and state tax policy affecting tax planning and pension issues, and representing the FPA before Congress and executive agencies on those issues. Prior to joining the FPA, he worked for 15 years as vice president of government relations at Merrill Lynch & Co. Prior to that, he worked as a liaison for legislative affairs for the Treasury Department and as press secretary to former Sen. William Roth Jr. He is also the founder of the Savings Coalition of America, a 75-member organization that advocates federal laws to encourage personal savings.
Morningstar to Acquire mPower: Morningstar is making a grab for the large-plan sponsor retirement market. The Chicago-based outfit inked a deal to acquire privately held mPower.com Inc., a San Francisco-based investment advisory firm that specializes in serving the large-plan sponsor market.
Terms were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to close this summer. John Rekenthaler, president of Morningstar Associates, will manage the combined businesses. MPower works with more than 6,000 plan sponsors, including 3M, Wells Fargo, Peoplesoft, Hewitt Associates and Texas Instruments.
TD Waterhouse Integrates Axys into Veo Platform: Brokerage giant TD Waterhouse has integrated Advent Software’s Axys portfolio management and reporting solution with its Internet-based platform for advisors, Veo.
Advisors who use the TD Waterhouse platform will receive tech support directly from TD Waterhouse Institutional Services and will qualify for special pricing on all Advent solutions. Advisors can contact TD Waterhouse Institutional Services for information at (800) 934-6124.
Vanguard Expands Relationship With Financial Engines: The Vanguard Group has expanded its relationship with Financial Engines to include transaction and data aggregation capabilities for retirement plan participants whose employers provide access to Financial Engines’ investment advisory service.
The aggregation service enables participants to automatically load personal financial data from accounts outside their employer-sponsored plan into the Financial Engines service.
The move expands a relationship between the firms that began in June 2001, when Vanguard agreed to make Financial Engines’ investment advice available for free to participants in Vanguard employer retirement plans that subscribe to the service. Since then, Vanguard said that it has rolled out Financial Engines’ service to 137 of its plan sponsor clients.
ADVISORport Crosses $10B Mark: Advisorport, an outsource provider of online fee-based platforms to broker/ dealers, independent advisor networks and money management firms, has crossed the $10 billion mark in assets serviced.
The Philadelphia-based outfit, which launched three years ago, grew assets from $6.5 billion at the start of 2003. The firm attributed much of the growth to the expansion of its client base to include bank/trust companies and product manufacturers, such as money managers and insurance companies.
Survey Says Gen Xers Shaken by Market Losses: Shaken by market losses and Wall Street scandals, investors from Generation X - the 52 million Americans born between 1967 and 1981 - have slowed their investment pace, according to a poll by the MainStay division of New York Life Investment Management. The survey of 515 U.S. consumers ages 22 to 36 with investable assets of $50,000 or more found that the percentage of Gen Xers who stopped investing due to market losses has nearly tripled over the past year, to 11 percent in 2003, up from 4 percent in 2002.
Over the last 12 months, GenXers upped their ownership of insurance and real estate products, and decreased their investment in mutual funds and securities. The number who purchased mutual funds fell from 85 percent in 2002 to 71 percent. The number who bought real estate grew to 55 percent, up by 12 percent over last year. Securities plummeted to 47 percent from 69 percent last year.
