Geffen Donates $100M To UCLA
(Bloomberg News) David Geffen, the billionaire entertainment executive, will donate $100 million to the University of California, Los Angeles, to help medical students graduate without debt.

The David Geffen Medical Scholarship Fund will cover four years of tuition, fees and living expenses for as many as 33 students a year, or 20 percent of the class, UCLA said in a statement. The cost of medical school can exceed $300,000 for four years, and average debt for U.S. medical graduates was $170,000 in 2012, UCLA said.

Geffen, 69, is a founder of Asylum Records and DreamWorks SKG Studios. He donated $200 million in 2002 to UCLA’s medical school, which was renamed in his honor. With more than $300 million pledged, Geffen is the largest individual benefactor of UCLA or any single University of California campus, according to the statement.

“The cost of a world-class medical education should not deter our future innovators, doctors and scientists from the path they hope to pursue,” Geffen said in the statement. “We need the students at this world-class institution to be driven by determination and the desire to do their best work and not by the fear of crushing debt.”

Asset Manager Salaries To Increase Modestly, Study Says
Base salaries for asset managers are projected to increase 3.5% and incentive pay is projected to rise by zero to 10% from 2011 to 2012, according to a new study from Greenwich Associates and Johnson Associates.

The study found that the evolving compensation standards could widen the divide between traditional asset management companies and hedge funds. In 2011, hedge fund managers earned about 1.8 times the amount taken home by their counterparts in traditional asset management firms, according to the study.

Although equity professionals out-earn their counterparts in fixed income on average, incentive growth in fixed income is projected to outpace that in equities in 2012.

In equities, professionals can expect the base salary increase for 2012 to be flat to just 5% higher than 2011 levels. Fixed-income professionals can expect slightly stronger growth in incentives, with increases projected between 5% and 10% from 2011 to 2012, the study said.

“Those results reflect an industry that, like the economy and financial markets in general, is slowly regaining strength but lacks conviction and awaits a more robust recovery,” said Kevin Kozlowski, a Greenwich Associates analyst.
—Karen DeMasters

Millionaire Women Want Safe Investing, Survey Says
Millionaire women take a more conservative and holistic approach to their finances and investments than men, who are more interested in investment returns, according to a Fidelity survey.

Among those who work with a financial advisor, women are twice as likely to want holistic financial guidance and planning to meet a specific lifestyle or goal than millionaire men, the study shows.

At the same time, millionaire women are more risk averse than men and prefer certificates of deposit and domestic bonds, among other conservative investments, while more than twice as many men add domestic stocks to their portfolio, according to the survey.

Women also make better clients than men, being more willing to acknowledge they need assistance and an advisor they can trust. Among women using a financial advisor, 45% say they would be very likely to move their assets with the advisor while just 23% of men say they would go with the advisor if he or she changed firms.

“Based on these findings, it is important for financial advisors to recognize that women may be looking for different investment strategies or have a different set of financial concerns that deserve consideration,” says Alexandra Tausig, senior vice president at National Financial, a Fidelity Investments company. “The reality is that nine out of 10 women will be solely responsible for their finances at some point in their lives so it is critical to not only engage women early, but regularly, to retain the relationships.

Fidelity kicked off a campaign focused on how advisors can attract women clients with a conference in Boston last year called “Engaging Female Clients.”

Fidelity advises engaging both people in a couple, in part because of the differences in attitude and partly because a woman is likely to be the sole decision maker on finances at some point.

“With married clients, it’s imperative that financial advisors involve both spouses in all planning,” says Meg Kelleher, executive vice president at Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services. “With approximately $2 trillion in motion each year due to divorce and death, the reality is that your married clients could become single clients. Involving both spouses in planning gives both partners the skills to manage financially through a transition and can help protect your client relationships.”
—Karen DeMasters

Cayman Island Premier Arrested Over Credit Card Use
(Bloomberg News) Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush was under police questioning after being arrested in December for misuse of government funds and other charges.

Bush, 57, was taken into custody again after being released on bail, according to police. A second man who was also arrested and released on bail as part of the investigation will return for questioning, the police said, without providing further details.

Bush, who took office in 2009 and is known as “Father of the House” for his almost three decades of service in the country’s parliament, was arrested for misuse of a government credit card, conflicts of interest and importing explosive substances, according to the statement.

Deputy Premier Julianna O’Connor-Connolly would serve in Bush’s place if he is unable to govern.

The Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory which has the highest number of hedge funds in the Caribbean and has historically attracted companies such as Bain Capital LLC and Medtronic Inc., which use subsidiaries based there to lower their tax obligations. The nation was home to 10,979 funds as of September 30, up from 9,258 in 2011, according to the country’s monetary authority.

Bush’s arrest was a surprise, said Chris Duggan, president of the Cayman Chamber of Commerce.

“We were fully aware of the police investigation but we did not know what action, if any, would be taken by the police and when,” Duggan said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The chamber unequivocally supports the actions by Cayman’s law enforcement officials to root out any alleged unethical behavior that may damage the reputation of the Cayman Islands.”

In a statement, the chief of staff to the premier’s office said that “an occurrence of this nature cuts deep in our small and close-knit community” and called on the Cayman’s 57,000 islanders to reserve judgment.

“Sadly, it is a feature of our society that simply being accused of wrongdoing tends to taint one’s reputation as if one has been proven guilty,” according to an e-mailed statement from the Cayman government. “Even if subsequently cleared of the accusation, the blemish on one’s name tends to remain.”

Singapore Most Desired Home For Asia’s Mobile Rich
(Bloomberg News) Singapore topped Hong Kong as the most desired place in Asia for so-called mobile millionaires to reside, with quality of life cited as the main attraction, an RBC Wealth Management survey showed.

Almost a third of the millionaires in Asia who live, work or spend more than half their time outside their countries of origin prefer Singapore, while 24% pick Hong Kong, the second most popular in the region, RBC and The Economist Intelligence Unit said in a joint research report yesterday.

Real estate led the list of preferred assets for the internationally mobile wealthy, according to the survey, which showed 23% of those in Singapore reporting a “high propensity” for property investment, compared with 7%  in North America.
The island’s home prices climbed to a record in the third quarter, prompting the government to restrict home loans and cap property development.

“Singapore always has this quality as a safe haven, not just for your money, but also for your family,” said Wai Ho Leong, a senior regional economist at Barclays Plc in Singapore.

For mobile millionaires who moved to Singapore, 89 percent ranked quality of life as important and 83 percent cited the country’s political stability as important, the survey showed. Infrastructure and educational opportunity were also given as reasons to live there.