With business hurting, investment firms are turning to independent advisors as sources of distribution — and courting them with new products and services.

Today, Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group and Frank Russell Company announced a strategic alliance in the United States, designed to help advisors and correspondent broker/dealers meet the sophisticated investing needs of their affluent clients through a separately managed accounts program.

The new program, Russell Managed Portfolios, will initially be available through advisors who manage the custody of their assets on Fidelity’s institutional brokerage platform.

The program will offer investors all the traditional benefits of separately managed account programs — professional money management, tax managed investing and customization — combined with Russell’s institutional, multi-manager investment expertise and the advice of an advisor. Russell Managed Portfolios is expected to be available to correspondent broker/dealers in 2002.

“The high net worth marketplace offers advisors and brokers a tremendous opportunity to build their business,” said David Denison, president, Fidelity Investments Institutional Brokerage Group.

“By expanding our relationship with Russell and leveraging the investment processes they have successfully used for some of the world’s largest institutional investors, we are able to strengthen our wealth management platform and offer our clients a program that can help them attract new high net worth clients as well as meet the sophisticated investing needs of their existing affluent clientele.”

At the same time, TD Waterhouse Institutional Services, a division of the U.S. brokerage subsidiary of TD Waterhouse Group, Inc. is announcing several new services for the fee-based independent financial advisors in its network to utilize for their clients’ benefit.

TD Waterhouse’s advisor clients can now access: proprietary research from Goldman Sachs; mortgages through Nexstar Financial Corporation; administrative family office capabilities through Total Personal Services Administrative Group, LLC; and Web site development capabilities through AdvisorSites, Inc.

“In today’s changing investment landscape, financial advisors play an increasingly prominent role in the lives of their clients. TD Waterhouse is committed to helping them provide their clients with high-quality personalized service and the tools necessary to meet their investment planning objectives,” said Thomas Bradley, Jr., president of TD Waterhouse Institutional Services. “Advisors and their clients will enjoy many benefits through the addition of these services.”