Wealth management

State Street Global Advisors launched a short-term corporate bond exchange-traded fund. The SPDR Barclays Capital Short Term Corporate Bond ETF, which has an annual expense ratio of 0.1245%, began trading Thursday on the NYSE Arca exchange.

Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. has agreed to buy HSBC Insurance Brokers Ltd. of London for $216.9 million in cash and stock.

Frank Froud, an executive vice president for Bank of New York Mellon, was promoted to head of client management for the U.S. Froud, who previously oversaw client management in Europe, is moving to New York for the new post. Hani Kablawi, who is also an executive vice president, will take over European client management.

Old Course Investment Partners LLC of Houston, which opened for business seven months ago, plans to double the size of its advisory staff and its assets under management, currently $250 million, in the next 12 months, said Blaine Douglas, one of its managing directors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission agreed this month to delay for two years a rule under which certain indexed annuities would be treated as securities rather than insurance products.

IMGCAP(1)]

Northern Trust Corp. announced a series of personnel moves Thursday to improve its personal financial services for institutions and affluent individuals in the Midwest.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s wealth management division has hired two executives in Florida as it expands sales and portfolio management in the Southeast.

Investors are moving substantial sums out of bond funds and into emerging markets, much to financial advisers' delight.

Dreyfus, a unit of the asset management arm of Bank of New York Mellon, has announced the start-up of the Dreyfus Brazil Equity Fund.

Fund.com has announced that its subsidiary, AdvisorShares Investments, will start the WCM/BNY Mellon Focused Growth ADR exchange-traded fund in January, the first actively managed ETF to invest in international American Depositary Receipts.

Investors' optimism about the economy strengthened in November, and fund managers said in a survey that they expect the good cheer to continue into the New Year despite investors' flight from a key sector: bank stocks.

Less than three months after Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc. sold it to a group of private investors, Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust Co. is bulking up its assets and its adviser team.

Wells Fargo said Tuesday it will buy out Prudential Financial's stake in its retail brokerage joint venture for $4.5 billion in cash, a move that comes a day after the bank said it would repay $25 billion in government bailout money.

Morgan Stanley has promoted a 15-year veteran of the firm to be the head of its North American prime brokerage business, the first major appointment in the unit since a new chief took over in August.

UBS AG's U.S. brokerage plans to announce a new recruiting deal to attract financial advisers from its competitors, people familiar with the situation said Tuesday.

Mutual funds and exchange-traded funds increased asset flows in November, according to a report by Morningstar. The investment research company reported Monday that total inflows into U.S. mutual funds rose to $350.4 billion, with $34.6 billion of these assets added in November. ETFs had $14 billion of asset inflows in November, bringing the year-to-date total to $77.8 billion.

T. Rowe Price Group has promoted Mike Gitlin to director of its fixed-income division. Gitlin, who was global head of trading for the Baltimore fund company, will succeed Mary J. Miller, nominated by President Obama on Oct. 5 to become the next assistant secretary for financial markets in the Treasury Department.

Hedge funds attracted $150 billion of new assets in the first nine months of the year, a Barclays Capital report said. Hedge fund managers surveyed said assets under management were down an average of 32% from peak levels, but they remained positive about adding more funds.

Ultra-high-net-worth families are considering cutting back on their offerings at their family offices, merging with other family offices or even closing, after 81% of their investment strategies have been affected by the credit crisis and market correction, according to a study released Monday by U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management.