Industry

Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s largest lender by assets, will consider acquisitions of as much as $4.9 billion as it seeks to expand its wealth- management unit, Chief Financial Officer Janice Fukakusa said.

UBS gave its force of about 7,000 U.S.-based advisors new compensation incentives to use financial plans with clients this year. The plan increases the pay their financial advisors receive when creating those plans, and has resulted in an uptick in their adoption so far this year

Morgan Stanley has turned to Wells Fargo and UBS for new advisor hires for the second time this month.

A $1 million producer has jumped from Morgan Stanley to Raymond James in Columbus, Ga.

First Allied Holdings, an independent broker-dealer, is set to be acquired by RCAP Holdings.

With the passing of Dodd-Frank, the SEC is paving the the way to adopt a uniform fiduciary standard for broker/dealers and investment advisors. Barry Glassman of Glassman Wealth says that there's no feasible way for brokers to uphold the same fiduciary standard to which RIA are held. He writes, "for them to come under the fiduciary standard as it currently exists, their businesses would have to split up into so many micro pieces that it would be disastrous for them." But the alternative, as it is being proposed, is for the very meaning of the fiduciary standard to change.

John Hancock Financial Network is picking up another 280 registered representatives?with the acquisition of Symetra Investment Services.

Fidelity Institutional Wealth Services introduced a platform that it hopes will make mergers and acquisitions easier for registered investments advisors.

RidgeWorth Investments is beefing up its sales team with the addition of Christopher Danos, Scott Goldberg and Mallory Carr.

Huntington, NY-based Catalyst Capital Advisors has added George Amrhein as Director of Business Development to build upon the firm’s key distribution relationships and manage the continued expansion of its lineup of mutual funds.