Wealth management

BMO Investments Inc. announced Tuesday that it had revised the investment strategy for its BMO Global Monthly Income Fund to let it invest up to 100% of the purchase cost of its assets in securities of other mutual funds.

Legg Mason Inc. said on Monday that it had renamed its separately managed account businesses, using the ClearBridge and Western Asset Management brands.

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. in Columbus, Ohio, announced the closing Monday of its sale of Gartmore Investment Management PLC, the London-based arm of its Gartmore Group, to Hellman & Friedman Advisors LLC, a San Francisco private equity investment firm.

Mellon Financial Corp. said Monday that it had closed its previously announced deal for Walter Scott & Partners Ltd., an Edinburgh equity investment firm specializing in global and international strategies.

BlackRock Inc. announced Monday that it had completed its merger with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers on Friday.

Sky Financial Group Inc. announced Monday that it had bought a Worthington, Ohio, insurance agency that specializes in association member benefit programs.

Chesapeake, Va.-based Monarch Financial Holdings Inc. says it hopes its alliance with a local broker-dealer will invigorate its five-year-old investment brokerage unit.

Phoenix Group, an independent insurance agency and employee benefits company in Ripon, Wis., and a subsidiary of Hometown Bancorp, said Friday that it had bought Union Bank Insurance Group in Peru, Ill.

First Niagara Financial Group is finding success in the slow-growth upstate New York insurance and employee-benefit market by offering business customers deep and broad relationships.

TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. has promoted executives to chief financial officer and operations chief in what it said was part of a series of management changes designed to increase sales.

CHICAGO - Banks continue to lag behind wire houses and registered investment advisers in attracting assets to separately managed accounts, conferees here were told, but many are skipping SMAs and going right to the next generation - unified managed accounts.

Allstate Financial displaced the long-reigning American International Group Inc. as the top seller of fixed annuities through banks in the second quarter, according to a report by the Princeton, N.J., research firm Kehrer-Limra. Hartford Financial Services, the perennial variable annuity leader, took the No. 1 spot overall.

The nonprofit Investor Protection Trust said Wednesday that it had published a teaching guide that targets investment fraud. It is supplied at no cost to high school teachers and adult educators nationwide.

Monarch Financial Holdings Inc., the parent of Monarch Bank in Chesapeake, Va., announced the formation of a company Wednesday focused on investment management and insurance.

It may sound like an oxymoron, but Modern Bank is planning to use an old-fashioned approach to develop a cadre of private banking clients in the congested New York-area market.

John Hancock Financial Network announced Wednesday that it is establishing an agency in San Diego that will offer retirement plans; estate conservation; financial planning for small businesses, executives, individuals, and families; and long-term-care insurance for individuals and groups.

UBS Global Asset Management said Tuesday that it had introduced UBS U.S. Equity Alpha Fund, a core equity holding that seeks to generate alpha - excess return over a benchmark - by investing in both long and short positions.

U.S. employers' health-care costs are projected to rise 6% next year, or two-thirds more than the consumer price index, according to a Towers Perrin survey released Tuesday.

As regulators move toward more data-intensive investigations, the relationship between funds and their broker-dealers will get increased scrutiny - especially when hedge funds are involved, says Linda Chatman Thomsen, the director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division.