Vanguard Group is making its long-awaited entrance into the European institutional marketplace. The firm initially will target defined contribution plans in the Netherlands, Belgium and the United Kingdom. Defined benefit plans, insurance reserves and corporate cash also will be pursued.
Vanguard won regulatory approvals for four mutual funds, to be launched out of Dublin; it awaits approval to market the funds in different countries. The firm will establish its marketing base in Brussels.
The firm will offer three index funds - tracking, respectively, the S&P 500 index and the MSCI Europe index and MSCI World index - as well as an actively managed cash fund.
Management fees will range between 23 and 28 basis points, with total costs estimated to run between 30 and 50 basis points.
Frank Russell Co. is expected to file a lawsuit today against Wellington Management and try to stall a court order that requires Russell to move $900 million in assets from Schneider Capital to another firm.
``It is unreasonable that our investors might well have to bear the costs of resolving this dispute,'' said Russell CIO Randy Lert.
A Massachusetts court last month ruled Arnold Schneider could not keep three clients that followed him from Wellington, where he had been a partner. Mr. Schneider was given until April 17 to comply. Russell had retained Schneider for four of the managers in its managers-of-managers program.
Wellington executives were unable to comment because they had not seen a copy of the lawsuit, said spokeswoman Lisa Finkel.
FirstEnergy Corp., Akron, Ohio, is doing a major asset/liability and asset allocation study for its $1.542 billion pension fund, said Donald C. Perrine, director-investment management. The study is the result of the consolidation of pension funds of Ohio Edison Co. and Centerior Energy Corp., now merged as FirstEnergy.
The company expects to complete the study in the second quarter. Ennis Knupp is assisting.
The two plans are still operating with their own managers, although their assets have been combined in a single trust. Ohio Edison has 12 managers; Centerior, 22.
The Federal Reserve Board left interest rates unchanged after today's regular meeting of the Open Market Committee. The committee issued no statement regarding its decision to keep the Fed Funds Rate targeted at 5.5% and the discount rate at 5%.
Steve Gordon, fixed-income manager at Warren G. Nadel, said, ``The Fed, in balancing the domestic economy's continued strength against the expected contraction in the Asian economy in the second quarter, further reduces the fear of inflation.''
