Wealth management

The country's two largest custody banks said they will keep looking for acquisitions, of whatever size, as they wait for higher interest rates to spur organic growth.

Charles Schwab Corp. said it has agreed to pay $200 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit related to its YieldPlus ultra-short bond fund.

The business-development company American Capital Ltd., which continues to restructure its debt, is getting a helping hand from the hedge fund Paulson & Co.

Bernie Madoff's legacy is still influencing the regulatory community. Fraud is as much a part of Wall Street's history as the closing bell on the New York Stock Exchange, but the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent amendments to its custody rule are intended to make life trickier for any future Madoff.

As the recovery takes hold, the nonprofit world may be seeing glimmers of hope in the contributions into the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, says Sarah C. Libbey, its president.

The Financial Services Authority is finally cracking down on how prime brokers protect client assets.

Fortress Investment Group LLC fund-raiser David Cody is leaving after helping create the firm's hybrid fund business, according to two people with direct knowledge of the move.

As customers continue to move online, Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has decided to close nine wealth management branches that have been hit particularly hard by a lack of foot traffic.

Mutual funds attracted $47.5 billion in net inflows in March, mostly into bond funds, a trend that has endured for 27 straight months, according to a Morningstar analysis.

It's a vast gap between these two groups, especially when it comes to what each thinks are the risks in retirement, Iqbal, Limra International Inc.'s associate management director of retirement research, said at the group's retirement industry conference last week.

Bruce Karpati and Robert Kaplan, the co-chiefs of a Securities and Exchange Commission task force targeting hedge funds, buyout firms and mutual funds, are seeking to add five fund managers, chief operating officers or people with "direct exposure to trading and operations" at investment firms. The SEC placed its help wanted ad last month.

In line with its own worst-case-scenario forecast, Charles Schwab Corp. reported a significant decline in first-quarter earnings due in part to a 19% decline in trading revenue.

Charles Schwab Corp.'s first-quarter profit plunged by nearly a half from a year ago, as low interest rates and a trading decline of nearly one-fifth weighed on results at the discount brokerage.

The hedge fund seeding firm SkyBridge Capital LLC said Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire three Citi Alternative Investments LLC businesses with $4.2 billion of assets under management and advisory.

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Two veterans of the hedge fund world are touting a product they say lets advisers focus less on investment decision-making and more on business development and client service.

Warren Buffett's $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was partly a bet on the "integrity" of the Wall Street firm, Ronald Olson, a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. director, said.

Retirement nest eggs are climbing back after suffering during the recession. Assets held in retirement accounts rose 18% from a year earlier, to $9.3 trillion at Dec. 31, according to a report Tuesday by Spectrem Group, a Chicago research firm.

Milwaukee-based Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc. has hired industry veteran David Perez to open a wealth management office in Portland, Ore.

Registered investment adviser firms are on pace for a record year in mergers and acquisitions, after their strongest-ever quarter, according to an analysis by Schwab Advisor Services, the RIA division of Charles Schwab Corp.