Wealth management

American International Group Inc. announced Wednesday that it had hired a former top executive at Citigroup Inc. to be its chairman.

It remains to be seen whether Marsh & McLennan Cos. can find an acceptable bid for its Putnam Investments unit, an analyst said Wednesday, in view of the steady outflow of assets under management at Putnam the past nine years.

Fidelity Investments said it had started a research institute Wednesday.

Ameriprise Financial Inc. says it hopes launching a bank will give its financial advisers the tools to increase wallet share, but an analyst was skeptical.

NASD Inc. fined three units of MetLife Inc. an aggregate of $5 million for allegedly improper mutual fund share trading, it announced Tuesday.

In the wake of its agreement to buy McDonald Investments from KeyCorp, UBS AG's U.S. asset management arm says it will look to acquire smaller registered investment advisers in order to add share nationally.

Sun Life Financial Inc. confirmed Monday that it is considering selling its MFS Investment Management unit in Boston.

Alliance Bankshares Corp. in Chantilly, Va., said Monday that it had a definitive agreement to buy Battlefield Insurance Agency of Manassas, Va., in an all-cash transaction. The price was not disclosed.

Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. of New York said Friday it would cut 750 jobs out of its work force of about 55,000 as part of a move to save $350 million by the end of 2008.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s U.S. fund servicing arm says it plans to add scale and services in an effort to build its assets under custody.

Robert P. Kelly, Mellon Financial Corp.'s chairman and chief executive officer, says the Pittsburgh financial services company's strategy to be introduced in November will sharpen its focus on the asset management and custody businesses "that are global and growing rapidly."

The National Association for Variable Annuities announced Thursday that the U.S. products' combined net assets grew 0.2% in the second quarter, to $1.3 trillion, from the total at March 31, and 9.3% from the year earlier.

Bank of New York Co. Inc., which five months ago divested its retail and middle-market banking business to JPMorgan Chase & Co., has no plan to sell its private banking or asset management businesses, according to its chairman and chief executive officer.

Phoenix Cos. Inc., a Hartford, Conn., financial services company, said Wednesday that it had hired a MetLife executive to handle its largest investment management accounts.

Allianz Life Insurance Co. of North America has gained a foothold distributing its line of variable annuities through banks and is counting on the channel to help it jump into the top five variable sellers within five years, an Allianz executive said.

American Century Investments announced an agreement in principle Wednesday to buy the retail mutual fund assets of Kopp Investment Advisors. The deal price was not disclosed.

HSA Bank, a division of Webster Financial Corp. in Waterbury, Conn., says it plans to sign a contract with WorldCare Independent Medical Consultation Services in an effort to differentiate itself in the crowded health savings account market.