Wealth management

Continuing its rapid expansion, CapTrust Financial Advisors, a large Raleigh, S.C. registered that serves private and institutional investors, acquired Freedom One Financial Group. Freedom One provides retirement plan and investment advisory services to companies in emerging markets.

So much research comes out this time of year with many major firms cautiously offering their predictions for the new year that we wondered how they would stack up on the major issues. We’ve parsed through some of the larger reports from Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS, ING and Wells Fargo to track the top themes and condense it down. Here are some of their more interesting recommendations on global themes as well as some more local, unique investment ideas that they had to offer.

Advisors continue to flock to the RIA business model, making it the fastest-growing corner of the financial services industry. However, even as they do, more than ever are hanging onto commission income, despite the risks it poses to acting as full fiduciaries.

Here’s a sampling of bank reps who were recently promoted or moved to new organizations to assume roles of greater responsibility.

Securities America has completed its second broker-dealer transition in the past 30 days and added 30 advisors in Washington, Iowa.

For RIAs who want to ensure clients that their firm will endure to serve their children and grandchildren, a robust internal succession plan is critical. One way to do that is to eliminate outside ownership conflicts, argues the founder and CEO of one leading RIA firm.

Focus Financial has snapped up a big Seattle wealth management firm.

“It’s a good time to be an advisor,” said IRA Expert Ed Slott. “There’s a tremendous opportunity now because you have certainty.”

Independent Financial Partners, a Tampa, Fla., based registered investment advisory firm, has launched IFP Insurance Group.

The impact of last week’s tax accord in Congress -- officially known as the American Tax Relief Act of 2012 -- is likely to be far wider and more complex than many have imagined. And many of these complexities will directly impact financial advisors.

In the wake of the newly-passed American Tax Relief Act of 2012, it’s likely many wealthy clients will continue to make large family gifts. If they are giving away hard-to-value assets, they might consider following a tactic from the Wandry case, decided by the Tax Court in 2012.

The last-minute tax deal cobbled together in Washington contained several key elements for estate planning. Now advisors can break the good news to wealthy clients:

Here we present a new look at our Top 50 Bank Advisors list, reshuffled and ranked by AUM (and then we cut it down to just the top 20).

The RIA sector drastically outpaced the growth rate of the rest of the financial services industry in the past year, growing at 13% versus 1.3%, according to research from Cerulli & Associates. For our annual RIA Leaders report, Financial Planning ran the numbers to look at the 50 fastest-growing fee-only RIA firms for 2012.

Who is poised to influence the financial advisory industry this year? Check out who made the list, in alphabetical order, and who will set the agenda on everything from the next generation of advisors to the latest set of regulatory rules.

“It has been a good niche for us,” says Russ Crosson, the president and CEO of RIA Ronald Blue & Co. “Clients come to us because they want to be good stewards.”

The Internal Revenue Service released new income tax withholding tables for 2013 late Monday to reflect the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and the more recent payroll tax cuts of 2011 and 2012, but noted that the guidance would be modified if Congress acts.

Two questions lie at the heart of the rapidly evolving registered investment advisory space: Which of the country's 15,016 RIA firms can legitimately call themselves independent? And what, precisely, does independence mean anyway? Here are Financial Planning's top 50 fee-only RIA firms for 2012.

What advisors can still do to protect business owners' assets even though last year is gone.

For a price, new data-mining services offer access to stunningly detailed personal information on clients and prospects.