Wealth management

Northern Trust Corp. has been selected by Lincoln Financial Group to be the custodian of its defined benefit retirement plan.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. said it had promoted Sheldon Francis to vice president and assistant general counsel in its law division's investment law group.

BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, a subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., has introduced a suite of alternative investment services for plan sponsors and not-for-profit institutional investors.

Eastern Bank has jumped into the consumer-directed health-care business with card-based spending accounts and has been able to sign up 30 employers in its first three months.

Morgan Stanley announced Tuesday that its alternative investment unit had hired a Goldman Sachs executive, Joseph Stecher, to be the chief investment officer for funds comprising real estate assets.

GE Real Estate, a Norwalk, Conn., commercial real estate investment trust unit of General Electric Co., has promoted Joe Parsons to president and chief executive officer of its newly formed global investment management division.

Brinker Capital Inc., a Berwyn, Pa., independent investment management company, announced that its unified managed account platform has gathered $500 million of assets under management.

Placemark Investments Inc. has introduced a next-generation unified managed account platform, but a top executive says it falls short of what the company wants the product to be eventually.

State Street Global Advisors, the Boston investment management arm of State Street Corp., has started offering a bond exchange-traded fund that tracks Deutsche Bank AG's DB global government ex-U.S. inflation-linked bond capped index.

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Unexpected health costs and inflation are top concerns for preretirees and retirees, according to a survey of workers ages 55 to 74.

U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management said Monday that it had added 12 executives in the Los Angeles area.

Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., BB&T Corp., and other banking companies increased their insurance brokerage revenue last year, despite market conditions and dwindling fees, by buying businesses in areas where they had little exposure and pushing ahead with cross-selling efforts, a study finds.

Nationwide Financial, a Columbus, Ohio, investment manager, opened a Web site Monday to give investment professionals resources to help advisers develop retirement plan business.

Rydex Investments, a Chicago investment manager, introduced an alternative-investment fund of funds on Monday.

A mentoring program in which brokers coach small teams of licensed bankers helps explain Compass Bank's retail brokerage sales growth of about 20% in each of the past three years, according to the brokerage unit's head.

Union Bank of California, a subsidiary of San Francisco's UnionBanCal Corp., says the recent realignment of its wealth management business is meant to prompt double-digit growth of assets under management.