Wealth management

Invesco Ltd.'s Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management plans to take advantage of the "chaos" in the financial services industry to add assets and customers, according to its new chief executive officer.

Marshall & Ilsley Corp.'s acquisition of a majority stake in Taplin, Canida & Habacht Inc. of Miami in December is going exactly according to plan, according to an M&I executive. But analysts say it likely will be the last acquisition of its kind for a while as banks become sellers rather than buyers in the investment business.

At yearend a majority of global assets under management in hedge funds and funds of hedge funds came from institutional investors, and a third of those assets came from pension funds, according to the Alternative Investment Management Association.

Fourth-quarter assets in 529 college savings plans fell 13% from the third quarter and 21% from a year earlier, to about $88.5 billion, according to a report assembled by Financial Research Corp. and released by the College Savings Foundation this week.

Many advisers are in flux these days, and Brian Surovik at Lone Star Bank and Trust in College Station, Texas, knows how that feels.

By recruiting financial advisers and expanding organically this year, Gibraltar Private Bank and Trust, a Coral Gables, Fla., unit of Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc., plans to recover the assets it lost last year as a result of difficult market conditions, according to the new managing director of its wealth arm.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. announced Monday that it has completed its acquisition of JPMorgan Trust Bank Ltd. in Japan from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

KBK Wealth Management plans to increase its assets under management over 150% in the next 18 months by recruiting midtier brokers.

Starwood Capital Group Global LLC, a private investment company in Greenwich, Conn., has hired John McCarthy as global head of asset management.

Royal Bank of Canada announced Monday that RBC Capital Markets has acquired full ownership of Commission Direct Inc., a provider of independent commission-compensated services for institutional investors.

The Florida College Investment Plan ranked first among all direct-sold 529 savings plans in one-year and three-year investment performance for the period that ended Dec. 31 in a study by Savingforcollege.com.

Putnam Investments will waste no time reinvigorating its defined contribution business, and its long-struggling equity funds will have to earn their way into the mix, according to Robert Reynolds, its president and chief executive.

The top executive at UMB Healthcare Services, a division of UMB Financial Corp. in Kansas City, Mo., said the unit plans to buy health savings accounts from small banks that have struggled to add scale.

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

Geneos Wealth Management Inc. of Denver, a broker-dealer that serves financial advisers, said it has agreed to buy Portfolio Design Advisors LLC, an investment management firm in Seal Beach, Calif.

Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. of Connecticut announced Thomas M. Marra, 50, its president and chief operating officer, will retire July 3 and that he has resigned from the board of directors.

Genworth Financial Inc. of Richmond, Va., has a new insurance platform.