Ann Marsh

Securities America, and other firms of varying sizes, are offering comprehensive support programs to lure new advisors, many of whom are trading commission-based firms for independence.

A former top producer with Edward Jones, John Lindsey has begun the process of migrating to a fee-based business by partnering with Securities America branch office Cooper McManus, an RIA with more than 40 advisors.

Schwab report finds spike in total M&A activity in the RIA sector for the first quarter, but nearly half of the $23.95 billion in total assets under management transacted across 17 deals through March 31 came from one deal.

“While there used to be benefit and value in being a public company, there no longer is,” says Edelman, a member of the Financial Advisor Hall of Fame.

Genworth Financial Wealth Management launched a program offering its advisors access to capital to fund acquisitions and retirement.

Rep. Spencer Bachus seen offering legislation that could lead to FINRA becoming the self-regulatory organization overseeing investment advisors.

Drawn by the independent business model, Douglas King is leaving a 25-year career at Merrill Lynch in Minnesota to become the Los Angeles-based president of Financial Network Investment Corporation, a Cetera Financial Group company.

After taking public comment, CFP Board announced new changes to its rules and procedures in three areas, including the way it handles bankruptcies among certificants and applicants.

In his new role, Peter Dorsey will oversee advisor recruitment, practice management consulting, relationship management and sales strategy for the firm.

In an effort to break a deadlock in the SEC’s effort to adopt a uniform fiduciary standard, a group of seven influential consumer groups and industry organizations – including the FPA, NAPFA and CFP Board – have provided the commission with a proposed roadmap for resolving the debate.

“Women look at their money and ask, ‘How much money do I have and what do I need to survive on?’” says BMO Retirement Institute head Tina Di Vito, “whereas men look at market volatility and ask, ‘What will my portfolio produce?’”

TV personality and personal finance journalist Carmen Wong Ulrich considered many options over the past year and a half as she explored the possibility of opening up her own financial planning firm. After getting an inside look at multiple different planning practices, she decided she wanted to build something new and different, and that she was drawn to “the power of being in an all-female shop.”

A former host of CNBC’s On the Money, personal finance journalist Carmen Wong Ulrich has co-founded a new woman-owned Manhattan-based financial planning firm, Alta Wealth Management.

In order to make better financial decisions, investors need simple, easy-to-understand disclosures written in plain English and provided before they hire a planner, the CFP Board recommended to the SEC.

The founder of Veritable, the country’s third-largest RIA, says his firm’s new partnership with wealth management giant Affiliated Managers Group is part of a broader effort to build a business that can last for generations.

Realizing that advisors needed help in the current low-yield environment, Schwab decided to offer an automatic bond ladder investment composed entirely of PIMCO municipal bonds.

Some seniors paid extra for riders that no longer applied because of their age, FINRA says.

A former Morgan Keegan registered rep agreed to be barred permanently from the industry for putting 10 of his middle-class clients into “unsuitable” investments –- highly leveraged ETFs, regulators said.

Rex Staples’ securities enforcement experience and his background in securities law will be “a great asset” to the CFP Board, said Kevin Keller, the board’s CEO.

California-based investment advisor James Michael Murray allegedly defrauded investors using a bogus report from a fictitious auditing firm to embellish the performance of a hedge fund, according to the SEC.