Briefly:

Ten more may be added to the short list of people charged in the Madoff Ponzi scheme.

So far, only Madoff and his accountant have been criminally charged for the biggest financial charge in history, which has caused losses in the amount of $13 billion to $70 billion to investors.

A person who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing wouldn’t detail potential charges or say whether the 10 would include Madoff’s family or former employees.

Amid the U.S. federal authorities’ probe to find Madoff’s little helpers, a greater mystery remains: what happened to all the money?

In the past six months, Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee of Madoff’s collapsed firm, has recovered just $1.2 billion on behalf of investors.

Forfeiture of assets from the Madoffs’ extravagant lifestyle make up only a fraction of the investors’ funds lost in the fraud.

Some sources close to the investigation recognize that if the trustee is going to make any real progress in finding missing funds, then he needs to focus on people who profited from an association with Madoff.

David Sheehan, the counsel for the trustee, indicated that he has acquired significant evidence showing that a variety of people helped Madoff maintain his Ponzi scheme.

There are other rumours that Madoff has hidden his billions in overseas banks. If this is true, it will be almost impossible to recover the funds.

• • •

BetaPro offers two new ETFs

BetaPro Management has created two new commodity-based exchange traded funds: the Horizons BetaPro COMEX Silver Bull Plus ETF and the Horizons BetaPro COMEX Silver Bear Plus ETF.

The HBP COMEX Silver Bull+ ETF seeks to replicate to two times (200%) the daily performance — net of fees and distributions — of the COMEX silver futures contract for a subsequent delivery month.

The HBP COMEX Silver Bear+ ETF seeks daily investment results, net fees and distributions, which endeavour to correspond to two times (200%) the inverse of the daily performance of the COMEX silver futures contract for a subsequent delivery month.

Both ETFs are priced in Canadian dollars. Any U.S. dollar gains or losses as a result of these ETFs’ investments will be hedged back to the Canadian dollar to the best of the ETFs’ ability.

• • •

Manulife temporarily reduces money market fund fees

In response to low interest rates on money market instruments in Canada, Manulife Mutual Funds is temporarily reducing the management fees on the Manulife Money Market Fund and the Manulife Short Term Yield Class.

The fee reduction is being implemented to maintain positive yield for security holders of its money market instruments in this low interest rate environment.

Effective July 1, 2009, Manulife Mutual Funds is temporarily reducing the management fees of the advisor series of the funds.

On certain series of the funds, Manulife will temporarily suspend trailer fees, effective July 1, 2009.

Also effective July 1, 2009, the DSC and low load options for the funds will be capped to all new purchases. However, switches in from other Manulife funds will still be permitted.

Manulife may continue to waive fees as required to ensure positive returns for investors.

Further changes may be made to the rate of the management fees and/or trailer fees, including increasing them to their previous levels or making further reductions as it considers advisable based on market conditions.

• • •

RBC names new sub-advisor for private U.S. pool

RBC Asset Management Inc. has appointed Westwood Management Corp. as the new sub-advisor for the RBC Private U.S. Value Equity Pool.

Effective July 1, 2009, Westwood replaces Boyar Asset Management Inc.

Westwood was founded in 1983, with a focus to serve primarily institutional clients. The firm manages more than US$7 billion in assets with a value-oriented approach to investing in U.S. large cap, U.S. small and mid cap and U.S. small cap equities.

• • •

ScotiaMcLeod replaces global real estate advisor

ScotiaMcLeod today announced a change in portfolio advisor for the Pinnacle Global Real Estate Securities Fund.

Effective July 1, 2009, Forum Partners Europe (U.K.) LLP will replace Citigroup Alternative Investments LLC.

The investment team at Forum Partners will consist of the same individuals previously together at Citigroup. This change in portfolio advisor will maintain consistency for the fund, as the team will continue to apply the same investment strategies.

Founded in 2002, Forum Partners is a global real estate investment management firm with approximately $2 billion in assets.

(06/30/09)