OPERATIONS

U.S. Clearing, a division of Fleet Securities, Inc., and a large clearing and execution firms, announced that it has formed a new relationship-management group, under the leadership of Christopher Sandel, to focus on the further enhancement of its service quality, and to integrate more fully sales and marketing and relationship-management activities across all its business lines.

Charles River Development and TradeWeb announced an agreement to offer a fixed-income straight-through-processing solution that spans the front, middle and back office. Together, the two firms will attempt to provide investment managers with a fixed-income-workflow solution, from "what if" analysis and pre-trade compliance straight through to electronic-trade execution, allocation, and confirmation.

JPMorgan announced the addition of end-to-end investment-partnership processing to its accounting, tax, custody, administration and transfer-agency services for investment managers. Investment partnerships enable investment managers to commingle assets of taxable and ERISA clients without the restrictions of a domestic mutual fund. Investment partnerships can offer the investment manager greater flexibility than mutual funds, since investment partnerships generally are not subject to the regulatory constraints imposed by the Investment Company Act of 1940.