Ann Marsh

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.

The firm's growth spurt has brought Washington Wealth’s total AUM, which was at a modest $100 million in December 2011, to well over $1 billion.

RIAs like to think of themselves as starkly different than their counterparts in the wirehouse channel -- in terms of fee structure, fiduciary responsibility, independence and, often, income. But a new study casts some doubt on the income part of that equation.

The network of independent broker-dealers has introduced a platform that proactively rebalances client portfolios at all account sizes for lower prices.

A recent Schwab survey of planning students at Texas Tech found that the lure of client relationship management and working in-person with clients remains high, with nearly half of students citing the latter as a priority.

Many financial advisors and their firms fail to understand and comply with custodial responsibilities to clients, according to the SEC . As a result, the commission has issued a “risk alert” and “advisor bulletin” to remind and educate planners about the importance of complying with custody rule.