At the Bell

Boehner knocks Senate on advice

House Republicans took Senate leaders to task last week for refusing to schedule a vote on pension reform legislation, which includes a measure allowing financial companies to give investment advice to 401(k) participants.

Senate leaders have reached agreement on bills to be taken up during June and July, and they do not include pension reform.

John Boehner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, accused the Senate’s Democratic leadership of putting “political interests ahead of the needs of working Americans.”

The investment advice bill the Senate is working on would allow only independent advisers to provide advice to participants in 401(k) programs.

The SEC will vote on the proposal at an open meeting scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m.

ING sets a record in annuity sales

ING U.S. Financial Services in Atlanta announced Friday that it had hit an annuity sales milestone in May: its first $1 billion month.

A wholesaling force that totals 100 and the recent introduction of a multirate index annuity were factors in the record sales in variable and registered fixed annuities, says Jim McInnis, ING’s president of wholesale distribution.

The previous record, set just a month earlier, was about $700 million.

Merrill adds analyst of data processors

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. of New York has hired Gregory Smith, a former analyst of online brokerage companies for JPMorgan H&Q in San Francisco.

Mr. Smith will cover financial processing companies, a new area for Merrill. Leaders in the industry are Automatic Data Processing Inc. and Paychex Inc.

Advisers are found down on selves

Almost a third of financial advisers believed their clients were extremely or very dissatisfied with them, according to a survey released Friday by The Phoenix Cos. Inc. in Hartford, Conn., parent of Phoenix Investment Partners Ltd.

But only 9% of the wealthy with a primary financial adviser reported those levels of dissatisfaction, the survey also found.

Those who were dissatisfied were clear about the reasons.

According to the survey, 40% of the dissatisfied customers reported that their adviser was not proactive in maintaining contact with them, and an additional 11% stated that the advisers were difficult to reach.

The survey was commissioned by Phoenix but conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. of Rochester, N.Y.