Short Interests: For adviser background check, click here

Digging into the background of a financial adviser – including information on disciplinary problems – just got a lot easier.

A website launched last week by the Securities and Exchange Commission and state regulators – adviserinfo.sec.gov – allows investors to access information about money managers, financial planners and investment advisers.

Called Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, the website provides instant access to registration documents filed by more than 9,000 registered investment advisers. The documents provide information about an adviser’s business, services and fees, as well as any disciplinary problems a firm or its employees may have had during the past 10 years.

“The IAPD website underscores the SEC’s commitment to full public disclosure by giving investors a valuable new tool to help them compare the qualifications and services of thousands of investment advisers,” says SEC Chairman Harvey L. Pitt.

“Investors need to know who they’re dealing with, and IAPD will help them do just that, with just a click of a mouse,” adds Joseph Borg, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association. “IAPD will become an increasingly useful tool for investors as more and more state investment advisers come on the system in the months ahead.”

Talk about timing

The coming-out party for the First Eagle U.S. Value Fund couldn’t have come at a more awkward time. The fund, part of the First Eagle SoGen Funds, offered by Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder Advisers Inc. of New York, was formally launched Sept. 4, a week before the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. The attacks sped up a stock market slide that many market experts felt was already in the making.

Charles de Vaulx, who manages the fund with Jean-Marie Eveillard, admits that it was not an ideal time to come out with a new fund. Even though the fund still has 35% of its assets in cash, it was down about 7% a week after the attacks, he says. Such numbers seem reasonable after such a traumatic event, but not to Mr. de Vaulx. He says that he believes only in absolute, not relative, performance. As Mr. Eveillard once put it, “You cannot eat relative returns.”

But rolling out a fund when the economy has gone sour isn’t all that bad, Mr. de Vaulx says. Because the fund still has 35% of its assets in cash, it can go bargain hunting for stocks. Even value stocks, some of which were holding their ground before the attacks, have come down in price, he says.

Smooth sailing for wholesalers

The markets were lousy last year, but that doesn’t mean everyone in the financial services business made less money.

Wholesalers, the people who sell mutual funds, annuities, separate accounts and 401(k) plans to wirehouses, saw their compensation increase by 10.6% on average in 2000, according to a new survey. Wholesalers selling separate or wrap accounts on average made $236,400, according to the survey, which was conducted by DGL Consultants in Richford, Vt.

Managed-money programs were the most lucrative products to sell. “Wrap accounts have been hot lately,” says Pam Zappala, director of research for DGL. She adds that, up until the final quarter, 2000 was a good year for people selling mutual funds.

The survey was based on questionnaires and interviews from more than 200 companies, including mutual fund and retirement services firms.