Matt Ackermann

The Coral Gables, Fla., based wealth manager continued it expansion by adding an advisors with 20 years of experience in investments and relationship management in the United States and Latin America.

Lauren Locker was elected national chairwoman less than two weeks after its incoming chairman, Ron Rhoades announced he would not assume the organization's helm because of a compliance violation by his firm.

A group of financial advisory teams in Oregon, led by Brett Davis, Steve Altman, Todd Gescher, and Jason Herber, have combine to form True Private Wealth Advisors.

MNA Group and Anderson & Delutri are the ninth and 10th teams to join HighTower this year, and the 34th and 35th teams to enter into the partnership since its inception. Both teams were previously part of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Already this year, Independent Financial Partners, which has nearly 500 advisors, has increased its advisor count by more than 50% over the total number of advisors it added in 2011.

Ryan Kaufman decided to leave Woodbury, where he has worked since 2009, after the company announced in July that it would be acquired by American International Group. "Given my personal experiences and past dealings with the potential new purchaser, I thought it would be hard for me to go back to my clients and explain that we were re-affiliating with the parent company," he said.

JHS Capital Advisors, a Tampa, Fla., based registered securities broker-dealer and registered investment advisor, continued its national expansion when it announced Monday it hired Steven R. Lofquist as a first vice president and a financial advisor.

TD Ameritrade Institutional attracted 120 breakaway brokers to its platform for independent registered investment advisors in the third quarter of last year, a nearly 50% from a year earlier.

Eugene M. Lerner has spent his six-decade career in the financial services industry trying to stay ahead of the curve. His decision to leave Morgan Stanley for HighTower speaks to where he thinks the industry is heading in the near future.

The addition of The Lerner Group is the seventh advisor team to join HighTower in 2012, and the 32nd team to join the partnership since it launched.

Ferrara, who was elected during the CFP Board’s July meeting last week, is president and CEO of ProVise Management Group, LLC, a Clearwater, Fla., financial planning firm with more than $630 million in assets under management.

Fusion offers practice management and business consulting to independent financial advisors. NFP hopes the deal will increase its margins by next year.

When it comes to technology, most advisors want to streamline, but they remain stuck using multiple system, according to a survey.

The Raleigh, N.C., company hired Charles Pendergraft, John Zachary Carnes, Cort Meinelschmidt, Chelsea Miller, J. Marshall Culp 3d, and James Beam.

In an effort to enhance the technology it offers for personal financial advice delivered to the mass market, NestWise LLC, a unit of LPL Financial, will buy Veritat Advisors.

Michael Hull and Patrick Hull created bluepoint after leaving Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, where they had been institutional consulting directors of Graystone Consulting.

Savant Capital Management and The Monitor Group, two independent fee-only RIAs, announced that they have finalized the merger of their firms to officially become Savant Capital LLC.

The Chicago-based company announced Monday it added a pair of experienced advisors from UBS. The team is the sixth HighTower has added this year.

Nine out of 10 independent registered investment advisors say their roster of clients has increased or remained steady in the past 12 months and that has them looking to add staff in the year ahead to sustain that growth.

The acquisition adds 126 relationships and $200 million in assets to the San Antonio-based wealth advisory firm.