NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bruce R. Bent, creator of the world’s first money-market fund in 1969 along with partner Henry B.R. "Harry" Brown, will be honored by luminaries of the financial world at the Strategic Insight 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner on November 7, 2011. Honorees were selected by Strategic Insight’s “Visionaries” Advisory Board. Mr. Bent will be recognized as one of the “Visionaries of the Modern Era of the Mutual Fund Industry.” In addition to Mr. Bent, the list includes Bill Gross, PIMCO founder and co-chief investment officer; Edward C. “Ned” Johnson III, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Fidelity Investments; Chuck Schwab, chairman of the board of the Charles Schwab Corporation; and John Templeton.
“I’m very pleased to be honored by my peers,” said Mr. Bent. “It’s both gratifying and humbling to be associated with some of the giants who helped to shape the financial world.”
Peter G. Crane, president and publisher of Crane Data LLC, the premier money-market fund information company, stated: “Bruce Bent’s invention of the money-market mutual fund stands as one of the most important developments in the history of mutual funds. Not only have money-market funds, now at $2.6 trillion in assets, earned investors over $1 trillion in interest income over their 40-year lifetime—hundreds of billions more than they likely would have earned in banks; they’ve also substantially lowered financing costs to corporations, municipalities and the U.S. government. Mr. Bent truly deserves Strategic Insight’s title of ‘Visionary.’ ”
Avi Nachmany, director of research, executive vice president at Strategic Insight, said Mr. Bent “helped envision, build and protect the mutual fund industry, which touches nearly every American today and serves as an inspiring example to many outside the U.S.”
The creation of the money-market fund has been acknowledged by the financial community as the flex point that popularized mutual funds with the investing public. Today, assets in mutual funds amount to over $14 trillion and serve tens of millions of investors worldwide.
Mr. Bent, chairman of Double Rock Corporation, has been inducted into the Financial Planning Hall of Fame as well as Money magazine’s Hall of Fame, and he is chronicled in the American Museum of Finance, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.