Ann Marsh

“Planners only have so many hours in the day,” Accenture's Kevin Boyle said. “So, [they need to consider] which managers do they really want to spend their times learning, getting close to and spending time advising their clients about.”

Connecticut Wealth Management is now the largest independent planning firm in the Hartford area after acquiring a rival with $120 million in assets under management.

Independent advisors should be preparing themselves more aggressively for sale and consolidation, a new study says.

Advisors who expect their clients’ wealth will grow over the years, and help them to build their practices along the way, are likely to end up disappointed, according to a new statistical analysis of data from 7 million clients representing $3.5 trillion in invested assets.

Firms looking to recruit hesitant advisors need to start wooing their families, a new Fidelity survey suggests.

Hundreds of employees of the country’s fourth-largest independent broker-dealer were directed to head to the firm’s emergency backup office outside of Boston Friday morning as law enforcement officials announced a citywide lockdown.

Genworth Financial Wealth Management will soon have new owners -- and a new name.

The new AIG Advisor Group system will allow its advisors’ clients to select a trusted family member or friend to help them make smarter financial decisions, explains Larry Roth, president and CEO of AIG’s Advisor Group, one of the largest networks of independent broker-dealers in the country.

Retirement income experts have a new professional designation to brag about.

Royal Alliance is adding wealth management firm JLTD Advisors of Chicago and Integrated Financial Group of Salt Lake City to its hybrid platform.

Company employees will head into the field next week to woo about 850 advisors from two broker-dealers that Cetera intends to acquire from insurer MetLife, says Cetera Financial Group CEO Valerie Brown.

The country’s largest RIA aggregator, Focus Financial, is hiring away an architect of one of the industry’s most successful breakaway stories.

Younger advisors are outpacing their elder peers in attracting AUM, according to a Fidelity study that surprised even its authors.

The happiness of the independent advisor appears to be slightly overrated. By a slight but significant margin, advisors in RIAs aren’t as happy with their careers as those in wirehouses.

Barnaby Grist, Cetera’s executive vice president of wealth management and a high-profile hire from Charles Schwab in 2010, is stepping down to care for his parents in England and his wife’s parents on the East Coast, says a spokeswoman for the broker-dealer network.

Nearly half of all middle-class households spend all -- or more than all -- that they make every month, according to a survey by NestWise, LPL Financial’s new online planning service for middle-class investors.

Birds do it. Bees do it. Planners with complementary philosophies should probably do it. Coupling up, in the business sense, can increase income by 32% or more. So, how can you partner more successfully?

A former Massachusetts CFP and his colleague spent $1 million of their clients’ funds on personal expenses, including fast food, legal fees and ATM withdrawals at casinos, the SEC alleges.

When small business owners become successful, they become a magnet for questionable deals and speculative investments.

Founded in 2009 aiming to serve women with online budgeting tools and financial advice, LearnVest morphed into a mass-market RIA firm last year and now has its eye on growth.