Wealth management

SEI Investments announced that is has signed its first U.S. banks for its holistic global wealth services platform after initially struggling to gain a foothold in offering wealth management tools to financial services firms in the United States.

Columbia Management, a Boston wealth management unit of Bank of America Corp., announced several executive changes Tuesday in its distribution and portfolio management operations.

The percentage of brokers and advisers likely to consider changing employers in the next 12 months rose 4 percentage points last year, to 9%, according to a study sponsored by National Financial Services LLC, Fidelity Investments' clearing arm.

BancorpSouth Insurance Services Inc. announced Monday it would acquire Joe Max Green/Insurance Concepts Insurance Agency Inc. of Nacogdoches, Tex.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s wealth management arm has opened an office in Tampa.

Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management hired Bill Seugling as a managing director and the head of investment advisory solutions.

Fidelity Investments announced that it plans to lay off about 250 employees as part of a restructuring of some of its units.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched the Morgan Stanley Global Long/Short Fund, an alternative investment fund of hedge funds that offers a diversified, institutional-quality portfolio of long/short equity hedge funds to eligible individual investors and small institutional clients.

Deutsche Bank AG has acquired the Carlsbad, Calif., hedge fund administrator HedgeWorks LLC.

The Itasca, Ill., insurance brokerage and risk management services firm Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has completed its acquisitions of Crist Elliott Machette Insurance Services Inc. of Oakland, Calif., and Yanni Partners Inc. of Pittsburgh.

Fifth Third Bancorp is responding to shifts in the marketplace by making fundamental changes to its investment business where it wants to take more of an advisory role with its wealthy and mass-affluent customers.

Wilmington Trust Corp.'s agreement to buy AST Capital Trust Co. is more about expanding its retirement plan services business — in both capabilities and scale — than an effort to expand geographically.

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The Chicago wealth adviser Envestnet Asset Management has started an alliance with H&R Block Financial Advisors that will allow Block's advisers to provide investment services to clients.

Legg Mason Inc. said Wednesday that net income fell 11.5%, to $154.6 million, or $1.07 a share, in its fiscal 2007 third quarter on a charge related to subprime mortgage exposure.

Jackson National Life Insurance Co. of Lansing, Mich., said record sales of variable annuities and record deposits from its separately managed accounts subsidiary, Curian Capital, helped its sales and deposits rise 22% in 2007, to $14.5 billion.

Wachovia Securities said Jeremiah Keefe joined its fixed-income division as a managing director and head of distressed debt.

Credit rating downgrades at major bond insurers could cause banks to take another $40 billion of writedowns in 2008, disappointing investors who were betting that U.S. financial institutions had put the worst of their losses behind them in the fourth quarter, according to an Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. analyst.