Minneapolis-based Ameriprise is a financial-planning giant with one of the largest sales forces in the securities business. Its offerings include asset and wealth management, annuities and auto and home insurance. In addition to its distribution through its affiliated financial advisers, the company also uses third-party advisers and affinity relationships. Customers tend to be Main Street investors.

The company was once American Express Co.'s American Express Financial Advisors, but it was spun off in 2005. In 2008, it bought broker H&R Block Financial Advisors and J&W Seligman & Co., a small, family-run asset-management firm known for its tech-investing team. The firm recently bought Bank of America's stock and bond mutual-fund business of its asset-management unit, a move that will transform Ameriprise into the eighth-largest U.S. manager of long-term mutual funds and give its brokers access to Columbia's high-net-worth clients.