Milwaukee-based Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. plans to recruit more than 2,300 financial representatives and more than 2,500 financial representative interns in 2010 to help the company meet Americans’ growing need for financial guidance.
The projection comes on the heels of a record-setting recruiting year for Northwestern Mutual, which recruited 10 percent more financial professionals in 2009 than it did in 2008.
"There's a high-demand for trained financial professionals and our forecasts show that this demand will continue to climb in the foreseeable future," said Michael Van Grinsven, Northwestern Mutual field recruitment director. "With all the market uncertainty and confusing options, people are seeking guidance and clarity in their long-term planning."

The BizTimes Stock Index, which measures the cumulative value of the stocks of publicly traded companies based in southeastern Wisconsin, rose to a new 52-week high for the sixth consecutive day of trading Monday.
The local stock index closed the day at 129.69, up .03 points from the previous day’s yearly record.
That winning streak may be in jeopardy today, as the broader market declined in this morning’s session.
The largest local gainers this morning were Johnson Controls Inc. (up 89 cents to $29.86) and Associated Banc-Corp. (up 55 cents to $12.02). The largest local decliners this morning were Kohl’s Corp. (down $1.29 to $51.46) and Bucyrus International Inc. (down $1.08 to $65.27).

Associated Banc-Corp announced today it has priced its new public offering of shares of common stock at $11.15 per share.
The Green Bay-based parent company of Associated Bank said Monday it intends to generate approximately $415 million from the stock offering.
The company, which lost $180.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, also said it will reduce its quarterly dividend to investors from 5 cents to 1 cent.

Brookfield-based Kolb+Co. SC announced today its shareholders have sold their ownership interest in Kolb+Co. Medical Billing LLC (KMB) to New England Medical Practice Management Inc. (NEMPM).
KMB has been renamed Revenex LLC and will serve as NEMPM’s Midwest regional office providing services to medical practices and skilled care facilities throughout Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota.
The 16 employees of KMB, including the management team, have been retained and will work for Revenex.
Although Kolb+Co. will have no continuing ownership interest in Revenex, it has entered into a shared services agreement with the new owner.
Tom Luken, president of Kolb+Co., said, “This strategic arrangement will allow Kolb+Co. to focus on our core competencies of providing high quality tax, auditing, accounting and consulting services to our health care clients with a recognition that if they need medical billing or revenue cycle management services, we can refer them to a quality operation that specializes in this type of service.”
Kolb+Co. provides integrated business and financial services and coordinated solutions to privately held businesses and their owners. The group has more than 100 employees and six affiliated advisory firms.
The union of KMB and NEMPM will enhance the services offered to current and prospective clients, expand the breadth of specialty areas served and provide greater resources to medical practices. Jointly, the two entities currently serve such medical specialties as: anesthesiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, general surgery, internal medicine, long-term care, OB GYN, orthopedics, otolaryngology, podiatry, radiology and urology.
“It is our mission to establish Revenex as the leading revenue cycle management company in the Midwest,” said Tom Murphy, president of NEMPM. “I am looking forward to working with the employees of Kolb+Co. Medical Billing to make this a successful endeavor for our clients and for us.”
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Racine-based Ruud Lighting Inc. today announced settlement in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Elcast Lighting Inc. of Addison, Ill.
Ruud Lighting’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleged that Elcast Lighting illegally distributed promotional sales brochures containing large portions of BetaLED copyrighted works, even including copying a registered brand (The Edge) to customers and representatives.
The defendant agreed to pay undisclosed damages to Ruud Lighting and adopt compliant business practices going forward.
“Copyright and patent infringement is something we take very seriously and enforce not only to protect our own assets, but to protect buyers from receiving misleading messages by companies vying to get into the LED luminaire business,” said Ruud Lighting president Christopher Ruud. “This is an example of a company trying to jump on the bandwagon by stealing marketing materials and falsely attributing those claims to products that don’t even have the same features. It’s an unfortunate situation for the industry, as products with proven performance do exist and are being adopted around the world. It’s essential to safeguard consumers against false claims, so that informed buying decisions can be made. BetaLED is doing its part to protect buyers and show how to properly evaluate LED products.”
In the settlement, Elcast representatives agreed to cease and desist and will comply with a permanent injunction prohibiting further copying, use or distribution of sales and marketing materials that infringe on Ruud Lighting’s copyrighted works.

North Shore Bank today announced that its board of directors has elected Jay McKenna as executive vice president and chief operating officer and Andrew Wallach III as chief financial officer of the company.
McKenna, who has been with the Brookfield-based bank since 1999, previously served as its senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer. Wallach, a 26-year veteran of the bank, was previously senior vice president.
The leadership transition is part of a succession plan adopted more than two years ago when the bank’s then-executive vice president, Richard Brophy, announced his intention to retire at the end of 2009, said Jim McKenna, the bank’s president and chief executive officer.
“Jay and Drew are talented bankers and business leaders who have helped guide North Shore Bank’s strength and success for many years, and they are well-prepared to assume these senior leadership roles,” Jim McKenna said.  “Our goal is a seamless, transparent and efficient transition.  Having highly qualified, committed leaders such as Drew and Jay in these roles will allow the bank to continue to do the work we’ve done so well for more than 85 years – provide the services people need to meet their financial goals; build a strong, principled business; and give back to our communities.”
Jay McKenna, 41, is the son of Jim McKenna.
“We’re glad to have Drew and Jay in these senior leadership positions at North Shore Bank,” Jim McKenna said. “Our bank, and the people and communities we serve, will continue to have an extremely bright future with these two fine bankers in the lead.”

Aurora Health Care announced that Timothy Sullivan of Bucyrus International Inc., Thomas Bolger of Harris Bank and Gail Hanson of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board have been elected to the organization's board of directors.
"The communities and patients served by Aurora will benefit from the valuable experience that Tim Sullivan, Tom Bolger and Gail Hanson bring to our board," said Nick Turkal, M.D., Aurora's president and chief executive officer. "Their leadership experience in the business and nonprofit sectors will benefit us as we strive to continue setting a higher standard for health care."
Aurora Health Care is a nonprofit health care provider with sites in more than 90 communities throughout eastern Wisconsin and Illinois.
 

Covario Inc., a provider of large-scale search advertising software and services, announced today it has acquired Netconcepts LLC of Madison.
Netconcepts specializes in the management of website search engine optimization (SEO) strategies.
The combined firms will do business as Covario Inc. and will be headquartered in San Diego, Calif.
The merged company will have nearly 100 customers in key industries such as high-tech, financial services, ecommerce, retail, consumer electronics, media, life sciences, and consumer packaged goods.
Covario will leverage the acquisition by integrating Netconcepts' GravityStream technology into Covario's SEO consulting practice and Organic Search Insight software.
"With the acquisition of Netconcepts and the GravityStream technology, Covario is bringing a unique solution to advertisers to help them accelerate their ability to present their brands on all the major search engines globally," said Russ Mann, chief executive officer of Covario. "By coupling Covario's Organic Search Insight with NetConcepts' GravityStream technology, advertisers will be able to identify the SEO actions that drive better rankings, and also deploy those strategies quickly, and in a highly scalable way to achieve their ROI goals."
"Advertisers who have constraints on their web development teams, usually do to the underfunding of information technology departments, need to build websites that are well optimized for Google," said Stephan Spencer, founder and president of Netconcepts. "The combined solution offers advertisers a fully automated SEO solution that spans keyword research, link building and web content management, strategy deployment, and ongoing reporting. There is no other solution like this on the market."
Spencer and Brian Klais, executive vice president of Netconcepts, are being retained by Covario. Alan Kipust, interim CEO of Netconcepts, is not being retained. The employees of Netconcepts have been offered positions with Covario, and the Madison office will remain open, Covario spokesman Josh Wozman told BizTimes this morning.

The Wisconsin Public Service Commission approved We Energies’ plan to build a 90-unit wind farm in northeastern Columbia County. It will be the largest wind farm in the state. Read more in BizTimes Milwaukee’s headlines from around the state at http://www.biztimes.com/#news.

Two prominent privately held companies based in southeastern Wisconsin will become publicly traded companies when they launch initial public offerings in early 2010. Read more about the plans for Waukesha-based RedPrairie and Generac Power Systems Inc. in this week’s BizTimes Money bulletin.

Some politically motivated people did not want to hear the news that Wisconsin’s economy has begun to rebound. Read more in BizTimes Milwaukee executive editor Steve Jagler’s Milwaukee Biz Blog today.