Wealth management

Futurity First Financial Corp. of Hartford, Conn., has started Futurity First Insurance Group Inc.

Israel Discount Bank of New York is suing BlackRock Inc. and MetLife Inc. over losses related to investments in subprime mortgages.

T. Rowe Price Group Inc. said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net income rose 28.1% from a year earlier, to $190.7 million.

Northern Trust Corp.’s new chief executive said he plans to use small acquisitions to expand domestically while opening offices to expand internationally.

Aurora Capital Group, a Los Angeles private-equity firm, has hired William Harrison, the former chairman at JPMorgan Chase & Co Inc., as an adviser for its investment advisory committee.

Dreyfus Corp., Bank of New York Mellon Financial Corp.'s proprietary fund arm, plans to join the growing list of banking companies offering exchange-traded funds, because they offer an opportunity to gather assets, an executive said.

John Hancock Funds' product lineup has added the John Hancock Floating Rate Income Fund, the Boston company's first high-yield short-term bond fund.

Piper Jaffray Cos. hired John Gibas as institutional marketing director to strengthen its investment management business and build on the Minneapolis investment bank's September acquisition of Fiduciary Asset Management LLC of St. Louis.

Hartford Financial Services Group's fourth-quarter net income fell 24%, to $595 million, or $1.88 a share, in the fourth quarter from a year earlier because of capital losses, but operating earnings rose and beat analysts' expectations.

State Street Global Advisors, the investment management arm of State Street Corp., has a new long-short 130/30 mutual fund.

In response to feedback from banking companies and other financial intermediaries, Fidelity Investments has overhauled its adviser-sold 401(k) retirement program, allowing plan sponsors for the first time to offer employees a menu of products that does not need to include any Fidelity-managed mutual funds.

If rating firms downgraded bond insurers, banks would need to raise as much as $143 billion to meet regulators' requirements, according to Paul Fenner-Leitao, an analyst at Barclays PLC's investment bank.

WisdomTree Investments Inc. has said it plans to start an earnings-weighted India exchange-traded fund near the end of February.

HSA Bank, a division of Webster Financial Corp., has announced that it is the first health savings account administrator to surpass $500 million in HSA deposits.

Charles Schwab Investment Management has announced that it plans to start two mutual funds this month based on the FTSE RAFI Fundamental index series.

Strong results from its fee-based businesses helped Boston Private Financial Holdings Inc. offset some of the loan losses and a pair of charges in a money-losing fourth quarter, but analysts said its loan exposure in markets such as southern Florida and California could hamper growth this year.

Janus Capital Group Inc. announced Thursday its quarterly profit fell due to a charge taken for discontinued operations.

Despite bankers' best efforts, a report finds that health savings account adoption is falling short of expectations.