Economy

"Change can be difficult even when it's change for the better," RBC's Eric Siber explains. "You have to have a tremendous amount of patience and show good leadership in making sure that everybody is on board and understands the advantages of the new platform and the new company."

The network was launched in September to help breakaway brokers transition from the traditional wirehouse model to independence.

The platform will provide Dynasty’s advisors with a turnkey solution for writing fixed life insurance, annuity, disability, and long-term care contracts.

Kirk Mandlin has a simple goal for this year and any year. "To be the best leader, husband, and father I can possibly be," he says. With the power of positive thinking, Mandlin expects to use those strengths to expand his business.

Rob Malenfant worked his way up the ranks at Smith Barney, spending several years in Connecticut, New York, and Los Angeles before returning to Boston as a branch manager. The variety of experiences and people he worked with inspires him now at his Boston Harbor complex, he says.

"A lot of potential clients are already banking [with Umpqua]. For us, the first priority is to make sure we let them know that we're there," Seattle market leader Elise Fortin said in a telephone interview.

The broker-dealers that make up the backbone of the bank channel, inexplicably dubbed third-party marketers, expect sunny skies and room to grow. The one common challenge that most will fess up to: They can't find enough good advisors.

This year, the leading wirehouse and regional wealth management firms took the steps necessary to ensure they reap rewards as markets hit new highs.

Is the boom over? After years of double-digit growth, independent broker-dealers hit a rough patch in 2012. We report from the front lines of the FP50.

The best bank managers and best wirehouse managers have a lot in common. While each has the distinct flavor of their respective channels, they are very similar in spirit.

Royal Bank of Canada was ordered to pay more than $800,000 to a U.S. couple over their losses on investments including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. preferred stock.

As selling stocks gets tougher, the number of brokers has dropped 12 percent since 2008 to about 363,000 last year. Edward Jones is finding success by sticking to its old ways.

Brock Loen says he uses the same skills to raise three sons as he does to supervise his 21 brokers at Davidson. His mantra: "Being fair with everyone, accessible at all times, and telling each other the truth."

Catherine Lapadula is a hard-charging woman who says she is doing what she loves and sitting where she always wanted to sit—in the manager's seat at UBS's international wealth management operation in New York City.

What is a “madvocate" and how can you insure they aren't contagious?

UBS AG, the Swiss bank seeking to boost profit from wealth management, said it plans to expand in Africa as economic growth rates surpassing 5% boost demand for banking services from the continent’s rich.

Royal Bank of Canada said second-quarter profit rose 26% as acquisitions fueled returns.

Small-business owners are generally satisfied with their access to funding and about one in five plans to apply for a loan in 2013, according to a new survey from Bank of America (BAC).

The past five years have been difficult for many advisors, but it was also a time of opportunity, according to Michael Gatewood of UBS Wealth Management.

When Wells Fargo named Rick Folmar the company's second-best complex director for recruiting in 2011, he knew he had more work to do. "It's worse to be number two than it is to be number 20. If you're number 20, you never believed you could be number one," Folmar says.