UMB Fund Services has renamed its Alternative Investment Services division JD Clark & Company, the company said today.

Advent Software has acquired Norwegian software provider Goya AS. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Through this acquisition, Advent now offers the product Tradex, which is complementary to Advent’s existing products and is already implemented at a significant number of Advent clients in Europe and the Middle East.

Affiliated Managers Group reported a fourth-quarter profit of $24.6 million, or 55 cents per share, reversing a loss of $83.7 million, or $2.12 a share, a year ago.

Carnegie Investment Bank AB, a Stockholm-based independent financial institution, has decided to let go of its asset management business and transfer ownership to investment companies Altor Equity Partners and Bure.

A former Merrill Lynch southeast regional managing director has been tapped to run JHS Capital Advisors, the brokerage arm of the firm founded by former GunnAllen chairman John Sykes.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has been gobbling up acquisitions throughout the recession in its quest to expand its business and extend its geographic reach.

Money manager Neuberger Berman has agreed to pay $200 million for a diversified portfolio of 21 private equity investments from a European office.

Affiliated Managers Group, a Boston asset manager, announced Monday that it has agreed to acquire Highbury Financial, an investment management holding company based in New York.

BlackRock Inc. announced in a regulatory filing that it plans to introduce a portfolio to give high-net-worth investors access to difficult-to-obtain hedge funds.

State Street has signed an agreement to acquire Mourant International Finance Administration for an undisclosed amount of cash. Based in Jersey in the Channel Islands, Mourant specializes in fund administration for alternative investments. The deal marks a continued expansion into alternative servicing for State Street. Mourant has $170 billion in assets under administration and 650 employees in locations including Dublin, Singapore and New York.

Noting the urgency and immensity of their task, global financial leaders are frantically making small and large changes to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and international financial accounting standards (IFRS) to make them more similar, and the Securities and Exchange Commission has recently made a single set of standards a high priority.

Following up on President Obama's mandate for change, regulators at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission recently crafted a report that details their plans to harmonize the regulation of futures and securities.

Though Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s wealth management revenue has slumped, the unit's head is touting its resilience and plotting an aggressive strategy through mergers and acquisitions.

Bank of America plans to sell its long-term asset management business, Columbia Management, to Ameriprise Financial for as much as $1.2 billion in an all-cash deal.

NEW YORK - Regulatory officials are pondering significant changes to the way the U.S. oversees financial markets in the wake of last year's credit crisis and the failure to prevent Bernard Madoff's massive Ponzi scheme, but lawmakers will have to make some hard choices before any real changes can happen.

Broadridge Financial Solutions and DeltaConcept, a global provider of portfolio management solutions, have aligned to launch a Switzerland-based platform that provides front-to-back integrated solutions for private banks and asset managers.

UMB Financial Corp. is installing Advantage Fee software from Fiserv Inc. to streamline billing activities in its investment management units, Fiserv said.

Wall Street's M&A business for asset management companies will be fueled by strategic expansion purchases and corporate divestitures over the coming year, according to a new survey by Jefferies Putnam Lovell.

Sometimes we seek out opportunities for change. Other times change is thrust upon us. Market conditions in the past 24 months have produced seismic shifts in the mutual fund industry, and several business drivers have emerged that will shape our industry's future. As asset managers, distributors, suppliers and others evaluate their next steps, these demands will drive strategies and shape new solutions.

Financial advisers have been going independent or switching wirehouses in record numbers since the economic crisis began at the end of 2007, and brokerages are scrambling for ways to get them and their loyal clients to come back.