Company Acquires Business Serving Advisors

RunMoney Corp., a San Diego-firm that provides comprehensive money manager platforms, has acquired PlannersChoice.com, a suite of online financial-services training programs and advisor tools.

Paul J. McIntyre, creator of PlannersChoice.com, has joined RunMoney as director of training and business development.

RunMoney‚s money manager platforms include tailored sales and marketing materials, extensive training and support, manager profiling, Web-based client account data, portfolio modeling, reporting, research and practice management tools. Its Advisor Proposal System provides a step-by-step investment decision-making process to help investors.

The company also recently announced it has met provisions for $3.5 million in venture capital from Mellon Ventures Inc. of Pittsburgh. Mellon agreed to invest a total of $5 million in RunMoney, which received $1.5 million up front.

RunMoney met certain benchmarks entitling it to the rest of the package, says Paul Cohn, a Mellon Venture principal.

Robert B. Jorgensen, Run-Money‚s founder and CEO, says his company wants to capture leadership in the individually managed-account market, and Mellon‚s commitment will help the firm do that.

For more information, visit www.runmoney.com or www.mellonventures.com.

PMC Agreement

Portfolio Management Consultants Inc. of Denver has entered an agreement to provide investment-advisory services for an Ohio company‚s wealth-management program.

PMC will provide money manager due-diligence services, prepare performance-measurement reports and provide investment consulting and back-office services for a managed-account program offered by Sterling, based in Pepper Pike, Ohio.

Sterling is a division of National City Bank and offers investment management, alternative investments, financial counseling, family office, private banking and fiduciary administration.

For more information on PMC, visit www.pmcdenver.com.

401(k) Guide

Search401k, based in Mendota Heights, Minn., has launched an online directory of more than 90 401(k) plan products from nearly 60 retirement-product providers.

The Search401k Provider Guide gives financial advisors access to more than 600 fields, such as product description, plan administration, investment vehicles, employee communication and record-keeping information.

A subscription to the guide costs $195 a year. For more information, visit www.search401k.com.

A Better Web Platform

TD Waterhouse Institutional Services in New York has introduced enhancements to Veo, its Web-based platform for financial advisors.

Veo provides advisors with access to client accounts and downloadable data for their portfolio management software. The new features include a simplified application process, online management and submission of client fees, a customizable home page and access to TD Waterhouse‚s database of over 10,000 mutual funds.

For more information, visit www.tdwaterhouse.com.

Reporting Services

CheckFree Investment Services of Jersey City, N.J., is offering APL Navigator, a Web-based application reporting system, for its broker-dealer clients. APL Navigator lets brokers and financial advisors access reports from any location. A financial advisor logs in at his or her affiliated broker-dealer Web site and can access account-list, asset-allocation, portfolio-summary and other reports.

For more information, visit CheckFree Investment Services at www.checkfree.com.

Managed-Accounts Program

SEI Investments of Oaks, Pa., is providing a managed-accounts program for high-net-worth and institutional clients. It is available to financial advisors through SEI‚s Advisor Network.

The program includes leading specialist money managers who construct, manage and customize individual portfolios of stocks and bonds for high net-worth clients. Money-manager selection and oversight is done by SEI. For more information, visit www.seic.com/iag.

Variable-Annuity Explanation

Ibbotson Associates of Chicago has released "Variable Annuity Investing," which broker-dealers can use to explain the product to clients. Part of its SalesBuilder series, the presentation shows the benefits of variable annuities. It can be downloaded from Ibbotson‚s Web site at www.ibbotson.com.