Wealth management

Counselors have typically been young, about 30 on average, but according to David Jones, the president of the American Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies, more older people are entering the field.

As it readies for a massive pruning of its mutual fund family, Columbia Management Investment Advisers is promising a stronger, more affordable lineup.

Many active fund managers get paid to predict where the market is headed — and to get there a step or two ahead of their rivals.

Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world's largest mutual fund, is raising at least $1 billion for a private fund to buy troubled loans from banks divesting assets to meet new rules, said two people briefed on the plans.

As fee-oriented investment management becomes more popular with advisers and clients, fee-structured accounts are growing apace. Or not, depending on how the terms are defined.

Willard "Bill" Jonathan Tillotson Jr. followed Rule No. 1 in succession planning: He started early. So when he died, control of the Pittsburgh financial advisory firm he helped build in the 1960s passed as expected to his daughter, Kim Tillotson Fleming, and the company's small group of employee-shareholders.

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Though concern about being unable to pay for health care in retirement is felt by somewhat fewer Americans, 23% versus 30% in 2006, more people, 19%, are worried about having to work longer to supplement retirement savings, up from 12% in 2006, new research says.

Entrepreneurs are a philanthropic lot — 90% of them donate to charity every year, both personally and through their companies, according to a survey by Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will vote Friday on new registration rules for hedge funds and private-equity funds.

Retirement is top of mind for a majority of pre-retiree baby boomers, a survey by Charles Schwab Corp. found.

Ultrawealthy investors, with their $25 million apiece in household net worth, might be a tempting prize for advisers, but any professional money manager who wants them as clients must sharpen his or her knowledge about alternative investments, new research says.

Stephen Wedel, an LPL adviser and founding partner of Four Seasons Wealth Management in St. Louis, is gathering a lot of assets by investing his clients' money in alternatives, including nontraded real estate investment trusts, oil-and-gas limited partnerships, managed futures and private equity.

The job market remained stagnant this year, both for advisers and wholesalers, according to Russell Reynolds Associates' wealth management recruitment and compensation trends report.

Investments pinned to nonfinancial criteria grew more than 13%, to $3.07 trillion in the three years through 2009, a troubled period when all professionally managed assets increased less than 1%, according to the Social Investment Forum Foundation.

The chairman of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards' board of directors said it is expecting "double the normal attrition" as a result of an 80% fee increase to fund a national public awareness campaign.

Pre-retirees who continuously held a 401(k) plan with Fidelity Investments for the past 10 years more than doubled their account balances, the Boston fund company said.

Kip Meadows, the chief executive officer and founder of the Rocky Mount, N.C., company, recently spoke about the effects of the Dodd-Frank law, tremendous commercial real estate opportunities and the new transparency hedge funds are embracing — even to the point of issuing daily net asset valuations.

Fiserv Inc. said USAA Federal Savings Bank has agreed to use its AdviceAmerica technology for retirement savings and distribution.

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