AIG broker-dealer snaps up wealth manager

After a steady outflow of advisers and their clients' assets in 2009, the AIG Advisor Group said today that one of its broker-dealers is picking up a wealth management firm with significant assets. AIG broker Royal Alliance Associates Inc. has added Rehmann Financial, which has $2.5 billion in client assets. This marks Rehmann's second go-round with an AIG broker-dealer. The firm was affiliated with FSC Securities Corp. from 1996 through 2003, when it moved to Mutual Service Corp. The firm in 2007 joined Triad Advisors Inc., where it has been affiliated until now. In a statement, Rehmann said it is the 40th-largest accounting, wealth management and business consulting firm in the country, with 16 offices and more than 600 associates in various fields. Thirty-eight advisers work with Rehmann. The AIG Advisor Group has been dealing with the steady depletion of its sales force since parent company American International Group Inc. took tens of billions of dollars in bailout money from the federal government. In 2009, the three broker-dealers lost about 1,700 advisers, 25% of its sales force. The AIG Advisor Group had 4,865 reps and advisers at the end of last year. Last month, SagePoint Financial Inc., the third broker-dealer in the AIG network, lost its largest branch of representatives, Regal Financial Group LLC, following a bitter dispute over Regal's role and future at SagePoint.