Wealth management

New York Life Investments announced Tuesday that it had hired John C. Siciliano to be a senior managing director and head of its investment boutiques.

WisdomTree Investments Inc., a New York exchange-traded fund provider, has retained Ernst & Young LLP to be its independent registered public accounting firm and dismissed Marcum & Kliegman LLP.

Most wealth management companies are preparing to tighten their belts this year, but Aviva Investors North America plans to add staff and develop additional products to increase assets and sales.

Variable annuity sales sank in 2008 as the stock market's swoon scared investors off.

U.S. money market fund assets grew 0.6% during the week that ended Dec. 30, to a record $3.759 trillion, according to Informa PLC's Money Fund Report.

CBiz Inc., a Cleveland benefits services firm, said last week that it has closed its deal to buy the non-attest business of Mahoney Cohen & Co., a New York provider of accounting and management consulting services.

The St. Louis investment firm Scottrade Inc. is opening a branch today in North Las Vegas, Nev.

A Manning & Napier Advisors Inc. mutual fund beat the Standard & Poor's 500 for the 10th consecutive year, extending the longest current streak against the index by a U.S. mutual fund.

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ING Group NV split up its U.S. wealth management business to put the company in position to increase assets under management when the economy eventually recovers, but analysts remain skeptical that anyone in the industry will grow in the near term.

Advisers' confidence in the economy and stock market improved in December, according to Rydex AdvisorBenchmarking.

Wealth management advisers already were losing distinctiveness before 2008's Wall Street meltdown; most players offered a near-limitless array of investment products at increasingly similar fee structures.

Univest Insurance Inc., a unit of Univest Corp. in Souderton, Pa., has announced the purchase of Liberty Benefits Inc., a full-service employee benefits brokerage and consulting firm specializing in comprehensive employee benefits packages for businesses with two to 500 employees.

Dune Capital Management LP is leading an investor team, which includes the private-equity adviser J. Christopher Flowers and the hedge fund Paulson & Co. Inc., applying for IndyMac Bancorp's assets and deposits.

Most 401(k) plan participants have continued to invest for retirement despite difficult market conditions, according to the Investment Company Institute.

The key life and health and property/casualty subsidiaries of Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. have been removed from a review with negative implications by A.M. Best Co., the Oldwick, N.J., rating agency that also affirmed the A-plus financial strength ratings and AA-minus issuer credit ratings of the Hartford units.

The Blackstone Group said Tuesday that it is making several changes, including liquidation of hedge funds with insufficient scale, in the single-manager hedge funds businesses within its marketable alternative asset management segment.