Nasdaq OMX is making a push to grab more ETN listings, challenging long- time market leader NYSE Arca for what can be lucrative listing and trading fees.

This past week, the industry saw Pimco suffer more redemptions despite the climbing performance of its Total Return Fund, a BlackRock bond ETF receiving a record $2 billion deposit, Virtus Investment Partners announced an agreement to acquire a majority interest in ETF Issuer Solutions, and a report from Cerulli Associates noting that socially responsible investing has become a frequent request of asset managers from institutional clients.

Salient Partners, a $21.5 billion investment firm, plans to buy Forward Management to expand its liquid alternatives business, a fast-growing product that offers hedge fund-like strategies to individual investors.

The industry saw Bill Gross attracting $769 million to Janus, the global ETP market breaking an asset record, a prediction on how much of 401(k) contributions that target-date funds will capture by the end of the decade and a J.P. Morgan executive joining Wilton, Conn.,-based Commonfund as CEO.

John Hancock Investments president and CEO Andrew Arnott discusses the strategic decisions the firm made as it reengineered itself following its 2004 acquisition by Canadian insurer Manulife Financial, the challenges facing asset managers in answering alternative investment demand and even potential competition from non-traditional players entering the asset management space.

The industry saw ETF inflows break a record, Russell Indexes liquidating a fund and mergers between asset manager service providers.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is weighing a bid for Frank Russell Co.’s asset management arm, a business the London Stock Exchange Group is preparing to sell early next year, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Man Group, the largest publicly traded hedge fund manager in the world, will buy fund-of-hedge funds assets from Merrill Lynch Alternative Investments to expand in the U.S. The London-based firm will acquire the contracts to manage Merrill’s $1.2 billion multi-strategy investments, and will pay Merrill Lynch $2.9 million when the deal closes and 35% of the management fees generated annually for five years, not to exceed $30 million.

The industry saw dollar hedge demand strong among ETFs, another insurer acquiring an asset manager and the second ETF provider to offer U.S. investors access to China's onshore bond market.

New York Life Insurance Co. agreed to buy asset manager IndexIQ, pushing into exchange-traded funds and adding offerings for retail investors who want to copy hedge fund approaches.

Northwestern Mutual completed its $2.7 billion sale of asset manager Russell Investments to the London Stock Exchange Group, the Milwaukee, Wis. firm announced.

The age of the startup megadeal is dawning.

U.S. Bancorp Fund Services Acquires Quintillion Limited

Goldman Sachs Asset Management(GSAM) announced it has entered into an agreement with Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management(DeAWM) to acquire DeAWM's stable value business, with total assets under supervision of $21.6 billion as of June 30, 2013

Bloomberg -- Bank of America Corp., the second- largest U.S. lender by assets, completed the merger of its Merrill Lynch & Co. subsidiary into the parent company to simplify the corporate structure.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) announced it has entered into an agreement with Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management(DeAWM) to acquire DeAWM's stable value business, with total assets under supervision of $21.6 billion as of June 30, 2013

Southern California-based Beacon Pointe Wealth Advisors has another notch on its belt.

The 50 largest asset managers accounted for more than US$38 trillion in assets under management at the end of 2012. This is a full US$4 trillion more than the year before, even as the biggest firms in the industry continue to enlarge, according to The Cerulli Report: Global Markets 2013.

A spike in the proportion of RIA-to-RIA deals in the first half of this year may signify that the advisory field is starting to come into its own.

Independent wealth management firm Banyan Partners is nearly doubling its assets under management to $4 billion by acquiring two firms simultaneously.