Wealth management

Morgan Stanley has promoted Jonathan Pruzan and Eric Bischof to global co-heads of its financial institutions group.

As variable-annuity sales slumped in 2009, the U.S. division of Sun Life Financial sharply increased its sales of the product.

Private Bank of California has named former Bank of New York Mellon Corp. executive David Misch as its chief executive, effective Monday, and made founding director Todd Neilson nonexecutive chairman of its board of directors, effective Jan. 15. The two succeed chairman and former interim CEO Steven Broidy, who is retiring.

H&R Block Inc. has agreed to refund as much as $19.4 million in fees paid by customers nationwide for individual retirement accounts as part of the settlement of a suit alleging the accounts were virtually guaranteed to lose money, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

RS Investments of San Francisco on Monday announced the launch of three fixed-income funds, because of a growing appetite for more fixed-income investment options.

Transactions involving insolvent companies increased 370% last year, to 543 bankruptcy-related deals representing $95.5 billion in volume, according to mergermarket, a merger-and-acquisition data provider.

TCW Group, a global asset manager serving institutional and individual investors, is betting that emerging markets will sizzle this year after a hot 2009.

The fixed-annuity business is rife with players trying to move into the product line, offering aggressive interest rates to attract new clients. But New York Life Insurance, one of the biggest ...

Responding to a spate of scams, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has issued an investor alert regarding "green energy" investments.

The stock market has gone way down and then way up over the past couple of years, but to Jack Ablin, Harris Private Bank's chief investment officer, those are just short detours on a long trip.

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Faced with subpar fixed-income annuity sales, banks are lowering commissions to boost volume, and at least one big insurance company isn't standing in the way.

Forefront Advisory, an independent asset management firm, is using the financial crisis as an opportunity to scoop up laid-off and unhappy Wall Street talent, giving them a chance to strike out on their own.

Having liquidated a money market fund in the meltdown, Utendahl Capital Management now plans to launch a money market-like fund with a floating net asset value.

Morgan Stanley was accused in a lawsuit Tuesday of defrauding investors in a collateralized debt obligation, called the Libertas CDO, by collaborating with ratings companies to get AAA ratings for the notes.

Former clients of Lehman Brothers' European operations voted for a plan to speed up the return of about $11 billion in frozen client assets, the collapsed bank's European administrator, PricewaterhouseCoopers, said Tuesday.

At least one upside to the financial crisis is that it has most likely turned people between the ages of 18 and 25 into lifelong savers, much as it affected young people who lived during the Great Depression, according to a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

With investor demand for fixed income expected to remain positive into 2010 and flows into equities showing signs of life, asset management firms are poised for growth, making them attractive targets for acquisitions, according to a new Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc. report.

Vanguard Group distinguished itself this year despite — or perhaps because of — difficult market conditions.

Advisor Software Inc. of Lafayette, Calif., has bought the registered investment adviser Advisor Partners LLC of Lafayette.