Fidelity Expands Advisor Referral Program
Fidelity Investments has expanded its advisor referral program for high-net-worth investors, Wealth Advisor Solutions, to include investors in Southern California, Manhattan and the New York tri-state area. The program began last December in San Francisco, Chicago and New England.
Wealth Advisor Solutions is designed for customers who seek sophisticated and complex services offered by fee-based advisors, as well as investment advice and access to a broad range of investment products and services. To help identify customers who can benefit, Fidelity developed a robust profiling process to understand customers' needs for services, such as tax and estate planning, along with their product and investment discipline preferences. Advisors in the program are selected because of their expertise in financial planning, portfolio management and holistic wealth management and their commitment to a high level of customer service.
"The immediate success of the new program illustrates that many of Fidelity's high-net-worth customers see tremendous value in working with an advisor to help them meet their wealth management needs," says Scott Dell'Orfano, executive vice president, Fidelity Registered Investment Advisor Group. "Because of the program's success, we are seeing greater demand from advisors in places where the program has yet to be introduced."
For more information about Fidelity's services, please visit http://ria.fidelity.com.

NorthStar 5.0 Streamlines Wealth Management
The latest version of the NorthStar Systems International advisor desktop, NorthStar 5.0, streamlines wealth workflows.
Its active Client Hierarchy has a graphical, hierarchical representation of a client's financial network, including relationships, portfolios, accounts and products. It links to CRM data and has a firm-wide product catalog with a unique Product Finder and Product Cart where advisors can locate, track and compare financial instruments.
For more information visit http://www.northstar.com.


Rogé Select Opportunities Fund Launched
R .W. Rogé & Company Inc. has launched the Rogé Select Opportunities Fund, its second mutual fund. It will have a deep value investment approach seeking total return for shareholders.
The fund's principal investment strategy is to invest in U.S. and foreign equity securities, including American Depositary Receipts (ADRs), across the market-cap spectrum, and special situations.
For more information call (973) 400-1341 or go to [email protected].


Retirement Gap Tracking Made Easier
Trust Builders Inc.'s new TRAK Batch Gap Analysis illustration tool allows advisors to notify plan participants about retirement gaps and what changes in contributions are required to close them. The program includes retirement illustration software for individual retirement counseling.
Participant information is imported into the software's database in one batch transaction. An example of a Batch Gap Analysis Illustration report is at http://www.TRAKCentral.com/documents/BatchGapOverview.pdf.

QA3 Partners With IPS AdvisorPro
QA3 Financial Corporation and IPS AdvisorPro have announced a partnership to offer AdvisorPro's investment policy statement software tool to QA3 advisors.
While investment policy statements have been around for years, recent regulatory and media pressure for heightened transparency has increased interest in them. They are most effective when customized for each client. IPS AdvisorPro is Web-based software that creates fully customized investment policy statements in minutes. For more information, visit http://www.IPSadvisorpro.com.

First American Launches Quantitative Funds
First American Funds has launched three large-cap quantitative funds that include proprietary models to assess how stocks in underlying indices may perform in various macroeconomic and market conditions.
The funds, which track the S&P 500, Russell 1000 Growth and Russell 1000 Value indices, blend this analysis with quantitative statistical models, computer-driven portfolio models and tightly constrained risk for quantitative portfolio construction. Call (800) 677-FUND or visit firstamericanfunds.com.