Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word management. 15 news.

Ellyn McColgan, a former senior Fidelity executive, is to become one of the top women on Wall Street after being appointed Morgan Stanley's head of wealth management

CHINA Pacific Insurance (Group) Co, the nation's third-largest insurer, raised 30 billion yuan (US$4.1 billion) in its Shanghai initial public offering yesterday, the second-biggest mainland share sale by a Chinese insurance company. Pacific Insurance, 19.9 percent owned by companies controlled by funds managed by the Carlyle Group, sold one billion new shares at 30 yuan each, the top end of a range, according to a sale document. Investors are piling into China's IPOs, seeking an escape from a secondary stock market disturbed by concerns about rising domestic interest rates and other government measures to cool growth in the world's fastest-growing major economy. "Chinese investors still have a lot of appetite for insurance stocks, since there will be only three companies traded domestically," said Ke Shifeng, who helps oversee about US$5 billion of Greater China assets for Martin Currie Investment Management in Shanghai. "The IPO market remains red-hot unlike the

HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank by value, aims to start three new funds on the Chinese mainland next year as it taps into the country's rising demand for investment products. "We will see a strong growth and I would be surprised if we didn't see at least US$2 billion of new funds flowing in," Rudolf Apenbrink, chief executive officer of HSBC Investments Hong Kong Ltd, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. HSBC already manages three funds worth US$1.5 billion on the mainland under the joint venture HSBC Jintrust Fund Management Co. It expects to receive regulatory approval for its fourth fund soon and will apply for the qualified domestic institutional investment, or QDII, quota in May, Apenbrink said. Financial companies, including banks, fund managers and insurers, invest abroad using QDII quotas. To cope with managing more funds, HSBC Jintrust plans to recruit as many as 20 new employees next year, Apenbrink said. The company has about 100 employees.

THE Chinese mainland will let its commercial banks invest in UK stocks and funds in the first expansion of the country's international investment program outside Hong Kong. The nation reached an agreement with the UK financial regulator for investments by the banks under the qualified domestic institutional investor, or QDII, program, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said on its Website yesterday. The government is loosening restrictions on overseas investment to counter inflows from a record trade surplus that have driven up local stock and property prices, Bloomberg News said. The mainland will "soon" come to a similar agreement with the United States authorities, the regulator said. "Expanding the number of markets that QDII funds can invest in helps raise banks' investment and risk management capacities, and also helps investors diversify their risk," the statement said, without providing further details. The release didn't say when QDII funds

ASIAN stocks fell the most in four months, led by Samsung Electronics Co and HSBC Holdings Plc, on concern accelerating inflation will limit interest-rate cuts, threatening global growth. Samsung declined the most in three weeks. HSBC and Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd paced losses in Hong Kong, where interest rates track those set by the Federal Reserve, after United States consumer prices rose the most since 2005. Centro Properties Group plummeted 76 percent in Sydney after the owner of US shopping malls said it was struggling to refinance debt. "Sentiment in the region is getting worse," said David Ng, who helps manage US$954 million at Hwang-DBS Asset Management Sdn in Kuala Lumpur. "First we had slowing US growth; now add on inflation fears. That makes for a bad combination." The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 2.9 percent to 152.28 as of 6:49pm in Tokyo, its sharpest decline since August 17, Bloomberg News said. The benchmark is set for its lowest annual gain

CHINA International Capital Corp, the country's first joint-venture investment bank, has acquired a US$5 billion quota under the qualified domestic institutional investor scheme, a senior foreign exchange management official said. Sun Lujun, deputy head of the capital project department under the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, said by early December, the forex market regulator had verified a total of US$23 billion as QDII quotas for China Southern Fund, Huaxia Fund, Harvest Fund and China International Fund. Sun said that through the end of October, 16 QDIIs had put on the market 154 QDII products. Sun added that US$28.6 billion were actually remitted abroad for QDII operations by the end of the month. The total indicates that capital flows accelerated sharply over the past few months as only US$4 billion or so were remitted between April 2006 and March 2007. In May, QDII banks were approved to invest in Hong Kong stocks.

ROYAL KPN NV, the largest phone company in the Netherlands, will reach nearly 500,000 customers for its television products this year, says Chief Financial Officer Marcel Smits. The company's share of the Dutch television market will be about eight percent, Smits said, according to Bloomberg News. Most of KPN's clients subscribe to Digitenne, which offers digital television for a monthly fee of 6.95 euros (US$10.15). "TV will be an important component of the revenue stream," said Smits. The Hague-based KPN is counting on new services such as television and calls over the Internet to make up for the loss of customers at its traditional phone business. KPN, which started offering Digitenne three years ago, aims to beat its initial goal of 10 percent of the Dutch television market, Smits said without being more specific. "They need new products to offset line losses, and TV is one of them," says Joris Franssen, a fund manager at Kempen Capital Management in

CONSUMER confidence is falling, the odds of a recession have risen, analysts predict the worst holiday shopping since 2002 - and retail-industry executives are buying their companies' shares like never before. Limited Brands Inc Chief Executive Officer Leslie Wexner and eight other executives bought a record amount of stock last month after prices fell to a four-year low. Dillard's Inc director Warren Stephens made the biggest insider purchase ever as shares of the Arkansas-based department store chain headed for the steepest decline since at least 1980. Cambiar Investors LLC, Royce & Associates LLC and Becker Capital Management Inc say insider buying foreshadows a rebound. The last four times executives added to their holdings, the Standard & Poor's Supercomposite Retailing Index rose an average 9.9 percent in the next three months, topping a 6.2-percent average rise in the S&P 500 Index. Retail company officials increased their investments by US$346.4 million since the start

The Homeland Security Dept.'s overreliance on outside contractors and insufficient management of them could leave the U.S. vulnerable

Tom Falk, chairman and CEO of Kimberly-Clark, says visiting customers is a key part of getting senior management and directors aligned on strategy

John Walker, president and CEO of EnerVest, has spent his career first analyzing oil and gas companies and then running them. EnerVest, a Houston oil and gas asset management company, operates more than 11,000 wells in 11 states.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - RBC Capital Markets analyst Larry Miller cut his rating on Starbucks Corp. on Monday to sector perform from outperform after a meeting with company management. The analyst said he came away from the meeting "believing Starbucks' multiple pressure will last longer than we expected as sales weakness, EPS risk, and return compression continues." He cut his price target to $22 a share from $26 on the Seattle-based coffee-shop operator. Starbucks shares traded about 1.2% lower in Monday premarket trading after closing Friday at $21.25.

Through its wealth management group, Northern Trust Corp. provides financial services to 22% of the Forbes list of 400 richest Americans. On average, its clients have $500 million in assets. They turn to Northern to hold those assets and provide investment advice. Crain's asked the president of ...

LaSalle Investment Management is raising investment in Asia over the next three to four years to up to US$20 billion as investor appetite for the region grows despite a credit squeeze, an executive said Friday.

HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayar, 45, has written a case study about HCL's experiment in workplace democracy for the Harvard ...