Wealth management

Van Eck Global has used municipal bond exchange-traded funds to make a name for itself in the tax-exempt investment arena, and the firm sees more growth ahead.

Just a heads-up if you are a struggling bank that owns a mutual fund family — Bruce Crockett, the chairman of Invesco's Aim Funds, may have it in his sights.

Just a heads-up if you are a struggling bank that owns a mutual fund family — Bruce Crockett may have it in his sights.

The Lansing, Mich., subsidiary of Prudential PLC in London, said last week that it had promoted Laura Prieskorn, 41, to senior vice president and chief administrative officer, and J. Mark Clark, 49, to senior vice president and chief information officer.

The Vanguard Explorer Value Fund, which will be available to investors in January, will be fundamentally managed and will specialize in small- to mid-cap U.S. value stocks, the Valley Forge, Pa., company said on Monday.

The SEC alleged in a filing last week that Kurt B. Barton and Triton Financial LLC raised more than $8.4 million from about 90 investors by selling "investor units" in an affiliate, Triton Insurance, and telling investors that their money would be used to buy an insurance company.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has announced the purchase of Portsmouth Financial Systems, a developer of modeling and analytics for structured credit transactions, so that it can give clients and investors more transparency in structured credit portfolios.

Wachovia Securities has been ordered to pay $1.1 million in attorneys' fees and costs after an arbitration panel dismissed its latest claim of raiding against the St. Louis brokerage Stifel Nicolaus & Co.

State Street Corp. has agreed with Intesa Sanpaolo, a Milan banking company, to buy its securities services business for $1.87 billion in cash.

Morgan Stanley ranks No. 1 in M&A fees so far this year and could knock Goldman Sachs Group Inc. off the top position it has dominated over recent years, according to a study released Monday by Mergermarket.

The Minneapolis company said it expects to close its purchase of Advisory Research Inc. in the first quarter in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $218 million.

Overall, faith-based investing is a growing, $31 billion, 100-mutual-fund branch of socially responsible investing, a $2.71 trillion marketplace in the United States.

Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Mack will not accept a bonus for 2009, which may be the first year in which the firm reports an annual per-share loss as a public company.

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.

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