The blog, www.mutualfundreform.com, has won the top award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) in the best small blog category.
The winning award was made as part of the 15th annual Best in Business Journalism competition, recognizing top publications and web sites and the best business news reporting during 2009.
The blog won the award primarily for its original investigative series into how little-understood mutual fund fees, revenue sharing deals, high commissions paid to wholesalers and different share classes all benefit mutual fund salespeople and executives more than individual shareholders.
The series, written by the site’s creator, Chuck Epstein, shows how these payments create conflicts of interest between shareholders and investment professionals which make it difficult for individual investors to obtain objective financial advice.
Other issues covered on the blog deal with the failure of SEC regulators, and the need for financial professionals to adopt the same fiduciary standards used by institutions and pension fund executives.
The site maintains that the need for mutual fund reform is essential since the load mutual fund industry currently has practices in place which essentially work against their own shareholders.
Epstein has been a senior writer for two large fund companies and also won first place awards from the Mutual Fund Education Association (MFEA) in 2006, 2007, 2008 for writing and editing the best adviser and/or shareholder newsletters in the large-fund class category.
He also has held senior-level marketing positions with the New York Futures Exchange, Chicago mercantile Exchange, and written by-lined articles for over 50 financial publications.
For a copy of the press released announcing the investigative series, visit the blog site, www.mutualfundreform.com
A complete list of 2009 SABEW Best in Business award winners can be found on the SABEW Web site, http://sabew.org/
