Compliance July 17, 2007

SPARK:12b-1 Fees Keep Plan Costs Down

July 17, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Retirement services trade group The SPARK Institute asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to continue allowing mutual funds to pay 12b-1 fees to retirement services providers, but warned that the fees should be disclosed to participants.
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SEC Chairman Christopher Cox has made no secret of the fact that he sees the use of 12b-1 fees as defunct and has revealed plans for the regulator to embark on a broad initiative to make the fees more transparent (See SEC Turning its Attention to 12b-1, 401(k) Disclosures ).

Larry Goldbrum, General Counsel of The SPARK Institute, argues in the letter to the regulator that the fees help make services “feasible and cost effective,” and that a decision to eliminate or limit the payments would result in retirement plan providers having to “make up any shortfalls by accounting for and trading mutual funds on a unitized basis, pushing the 12b-1 payment amounts outside of mutual funds.”

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Goldbrum further contends that the increased expenses would trickle down to affect net returns of the mutual funds, in turn making it more difficult to  report and explain investment returns to plan sponsors and participants.

The SPARK Institute’s complete comment letter may be found on its web site at www.sparkinstitute.org .

Products July 16, 2007

Boston Firm Unveils Two 130/30 Offerings

July 16, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Independence Investments LLC, a Boston-based money manager, has unveiled Long/Short 130/30 U.S. Mid-Capitalization Core and Long/Short 130/30 U.S. Large Capitalization Value strategies to the institutional market.
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According to a company news release, the 130/30 mid-cap core and large cap value strategies are managed by a team led by Senior Vice Presidents John C. Forelli,   Jay C. Leu, and Thomas D. Spicer,   who oversee the firm’s large cap and mid-cap equity strategies.

Independence ‘s long/short strategies maintain 100% net market exposure and generally include 125-175 long positions and 40-80 short positions, with holdings diversified by sector and industry, and active risk concentrated in stock selection.

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“Our long/short 130/30 approaches are enhanced versions of our existing strategies and by eliminating long-only constraints we are able to make better use of all the information in our proprietary valuation models,” said Mark Lapman, chief executive officer and chairman of the investment committee in the announcement.

There will be a minimum account investment of $1 million, the company said.

More information is at   www.independence.com .

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