Wealth management

Rep-as-adviser managed accounts have been steadily growing in popularity and will continue to do so in the short-term, but Cerulli Associates sees growth dampening further out because of the account's nondiscretionary nature.

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Axa SA and National Australia Bank Ltd. agreed to buy asset manager Axa Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd. for $12.2 billion in the second-biggest acquisition in Asia during the past year.

Primerica Inc., the insurance business that Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill used to build Citigroup Inc., is selling shares in an initial public offering at a discount to its competitors.

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned an appeals court ruling in the Jones v. Harris Associates excessive mutual fund fee case Tuesday and asked the trial court to reconsider the case.

Hedging its bets, Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. plans to increase life insurance sales by focusing on developing relationships with independent financial advisers, as opposed to the big-bank channel.

Dealmakers expect the pace of secondary equity offerings to quicken in coming quarters after a slow start in the first two months of the year, and a wider variety of industries probably will raise money through follow-on offerings.

Chicago-based FPL Advisory Group, an executive search and consulting firm with clients such as real estate investment trusts, real estate managers and private-equity managers says it now wants to represent top talent in asset and wealth management, too.

Technological advances are increasingly leading financial advisers to use unified managed accounts to oversee all of their affluent clients' assets.

For more information on this data, visit Novantas LLC and Market Rates Insight.

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ING plans to launch a registered indexed annuity next month and will voluntarily register it with the Securities and Exchange Commission in anticipation of Rule 151A.

Victory Capital Management Inc., the asset management arm of KeyCorp's KeyBank, says it is positioned to quickly expand the assets it manages in collective investment trusts, or CITs, for defined contribution plans, but the effort will not lack challenges.

Despite strong market returns in 2009, a majority of advisers believe their clients will have to work three to five years longer than they had planned in order to maintain their standard of living in retirement, a recent survey revealed.

Beginning in 2013, people earning more than $250,000 a year will see the Medicare tax on their income rise to 2.35%, from 1.45%, and the same group will be hit by an additional 3.8% Medicare tax on investment income.

Divorce settlements for executives such as bankers who rely on bonus payouts are becoming harder to negotiate as some companies give employees less cash and more long-term incentive awards.

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Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland's biggest bank by market value, said Tuesday that it plans to hire more than 130 salespeople for its investment bank this year.

Former New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine is returning to the business world as the chairman and chief executive of MF Global Holdings Ltd., the New York brokerage said Tuesday.

A former head of Merrill Lynch's family-office services has left to join the Fulbright & Jaworski law firm in Houston.