As investors continue to pour money into fixed-income products, exchange-traded-fund providers are flooding the market with new offerings.

ING Groep NV is looking to sell its $87 billion global real estate business, ING Real Estate Investment Management, and BlackRock Inc. has emerged as one of the potential buyers, according to industry sources familiar with the potential deal.

As the Senate begins debate this week on its version of a financial services reform bill, advisers and service providers working with retirement plans are trying to avert the possibility of coming under greater regulation by an existing or new government agency.

The actively managed exchange-traded fund market is expected to explode as top mutual fund companies, including Putnam Investments, John Hancock Funds LLC, T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co. LLC, consider entering the business or expand their lineups.

Almost five years after Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. entered the retirement income market, the firm has shut down the division devoted to the business — indicating how difficult it is to break into.

There have been more than double the number of target-date fund liquidations this year than there were in all of 2008, indicating how difficult it is for money managers unaffiliated with 401(k) record keepers to build assets in such funds.

The government's increased scrutiny of Wall Street's fiduciary obligations will prompt a wave of mergers and acquisitions in the investment management industry, according to Laurence D. Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock.

Target date fund investors may be happy with their plans, but they don't seem to be using them properly, according to a new study by AllianceBernstein.