Wealth management

Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corp.'s former chairman, Lee Farkas, ordered data sent to Colonial Bank for nonexistent loans in an effort to cover up growing deficits, an ex-president said.

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Many younger people pursuing jobs say they are not interested in financial services sales, according to Limra, which recently conducted surveys and focus groups on the matter.

Some brokers are eroding "The Protocol for Broker Recruiting," an agreement among firms that allows registered investment advisers to transfer between participating firms without lawsuits or arbitration.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. creditors including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have drafted a payment plan that would compete with the defunct bank's $61 billion proposal, taking back money that Lehman sought to give to bondholders, said two people familiar with the matter.

Business costs are rising, leaving some advisory firms to find subtle ways, such as tiered pricing, of passing these costs on to clients.

An elderly client has $12 million in two homes she wants her children to inherit. How to make that happen without exposing the kids to estate taxes that could oblige them to sell?

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About 30% of Mike Byrne's clients are not profitable, as he specializes in serving families with special-needs children. Those families are frequently overwhelmed and rarely wealthy.

From his offices in Milwaukee, the head of Baird Inc.'s Intermediate Municipal Bond Fund has watched at close range as investors and financial advisers alike have scurried to make sense out of their holdings.

Raymond James Financial has completed its acquisition of Howe Barnes Hoefer & Arnett Inc.

John Paulson, founder of the hedge fund giant Paulson & Co., earned a record $4.9 billion in 2010 overseeing a fund that exited the year with more than $36 billion under management, according to a new survey from AR Magazine.

Although 68% of asset managers have a social media strategy, that number should be far higher to meet consumer and financial intermediary interest, according to a report from kasina.

A majority of employees are looking for more guidance from their employers for their workplace retirement plans and their retirement goals, according to a white paper and study released Monday by the ING Retirement Research Institute.

The giant question mark of whether bankers will be able to find buyers for municipal bonds if and when they come in heartier supply continues to keep dealers sidelined, demand sickly and yields drifting up.

Households surpassed their previous record and hit a 20-year high as they hoarded $1.095 trillion of the nearly $3 trillion of outstanding municipal bond debt issued by states and local governments as of 2010, according to data recently released by the Federal Reserve.

In February 2010, the head of Firstrust Financial Resources LLC said the advisory firm was looking at different options to spur growth — with a goal of increasing assets under management from $600 million to $1 billion.

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by a group of black financial advisers who claimed Bank of America Corp.'s brokerage Merrill Lynch discriminated against them on compensation.

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Hedge funds around the world are ramping up their information technology spending to provide better service to the growing mix of institutional clients they serve and to ensure they're well prepared to adequately meet increasing compliance and regulatory requirements.