Deals & People March 6, 2009

Former SunGard General Counsel Joins ASPPA

The American Society of Pension Professionals&Actuaries (ASPPA) announced that attorney Craig Hoffman is joining the staff as general counsel and director of regulatory affairs.
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Hoffman is a former ASPPA president and joins the ASPPA staff from SunGard Relius L.L.C., where he served as vice president and general counsel, an ASPPA release said. Prior to his affiliation with SunGard, Hoffman was in private law practice specializing in the areas of taxation, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and employee benefits.

He is a member of the National Institute of Pension Administrators and is a fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. According to the release, Hoffman was a charter member of the first Internal Revenue Service Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Governmental Entities, and was a featured expert at the first National Summit on Retirement Savings, sponsored jointly by the White House and Congress.

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Hoffman is a longtime ASPPA volunteer in government affairs and with the ASPPA political action committee. As a member of ASPPA, he co-chaired the Government Affairs Committee, ASPPA said.

The Markets March 6, 2009

Mutual Funds See Inflows in January

Stock and bond funds experienced net inflows of $22.3 billion in January, according to the Financial Research Corporation (FRC).
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Corporate Bond Funds led the way, with $16.1 billion in inflows, followed by tax-free bond funds ($3.8 billion) and equity funds ($3.0 billion). International/global equity funds experienced the largest net outflows of $895 million.

By Morningstar category, investors favored intermediate-term bond funds, which posted an inflow of $7.8 billion for the month, followed by high-yield bond funds and specialty-natural resources funds, which pulled in $3.7 billion and $2.99 billion, respectively.

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The best selling funds in January were the Vanguard Total Bond II ($13.5 billion), PIMCO Total Return ($3.2 billion), and State Street’s SPDR Gold Shares ($1.8 billion).

However, sales were not enough to counter market losses as the combined assets of the nation’s mutual funds decreased in January by $191 billion, according to the Investment Company Institute (see “Sales not Enough to Counter Mutual Fund Losses’).

More information is available at www.frcnet.com.

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