Institute Launches Committee for Fund Directors

Washington, DC, March 29, 1995 - The Investment Company Institute has created a Directors Program Committee to oversee educational and information activities designed to assist investment company directors in their work on behalf of mutual fund shareholders.

"With the development of the Directors Program Committee, we are recognizing the increasingly important and complex role that fund directors play in the oversight of mutual funds' affairs," Institute President Matthew P. Fink said. "This new structure will enable the Institute to better understand fund directors' concerns, while at the same time providing them with more tools and information to help them do their jobs."

In addition to state laws that apply to public corporations, the  1940 Investment Company Act imposes upon mutual fund directors special responsibilities to protect fund shareholders.

The 21-member committee, which consists of both independent directors and management directors of mutual funds, held its first meeting at the Institute's Washington headquarters on March 28.

"The mutual fund industry appreciates the Institute's responsiveness in creating the Directors Program Committee," said Institute Chairman Jon Fossel, Chairman and CEO of the Oppenheimer Management Corporation. "Fund directors now have an appropriate forum to foster effective communication among themselves and to ensure that their interests are represented at the Institute."

Members of the committee and its chairman are appointed by the Institute's Board of Governors to serve two-year terms. As circumstances permit, the committee will meet twice a year in Washington, DC; once in conjunction with the Institute's annual conference for directors. The committee's current chairman is Donald Cecil, an independent director of a number of Merrill Lynch's funds.

The Institute's members include 5,528 open-end investment companies ("mutual funds"), 473 closed-end investment companies, and 12 sponsors of unit investment trusts. Its mutual fund members have assets of about $2.2 trillion and serve about 38 million shareholders.