Welcome to another round-up of the financial news we’re keeping an eye on this week. In addition to a few deals happening here and there – including AIG’s announcement that it will sell its ALICO business to MetLife, and Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina offering to buy Arrow Energy of Australia – here’s what we’ll be watching (in addition to all of the best- and worst-dressed recaps from the Oscars):

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Over the past several months, we’ve received great feedback on our weekly news summaries, including a few suggestions on how these posts can be more helpful to our readers. We’ve taken this feedback to heart, and have decided to change our “weekly news roundup” feature to focus on major stories breaking in the financial services industry. Moving forward, Our Two Cents will be authored by members of BlissPR’s Financial Services Practice Group.

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The business of wealth management marketing is evolving – specifically, we are beginning to blog, tweet and link. Think your clients are not in the social media demographic? Think again. Bessemer Trust, the Wall Street Journal and more clients than you might imagine are already engaged in social media.

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Bummed it’s the end of the football season? Us too! But to liven up your Monday, we’ve compiled some nuggets of interest from the business world. It might not be as good as a party on Bourbon Street, but its close enough. This week we are taking a closer look at news in healthcare, the markets and banking. Enjoy!

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Last night at the Grammy’s all eyes were on big winners like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga. This week in business news, B2B PR professionals at BlissPR have nominated Obama’s budget, Real Estate and Retail as the areas to watch.

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According to a recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, a dozen U.S Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are set to raise dividends next quarter, on the heels of the industry as a whole raising $33 billion in capital. The dividend yield for mortgage REITs was 14.6 percent on Jan. 13, significantly higher than the yield for Treasuries (3.74 percent yesterday). Publicly traded REITs are required by law to pay 90 percent of their taxable income as dividends.

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2009 was quite a year for bankruptcies: car giants GM and Chrysler and CIT Group, largest lender to small and medium sized businesses. It was the seventh-worst year on record according to Associated Press data. Below we discuss some of the largest bankruptcies and their ramifications.

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What would Monday be without a BlissPR top-line news summary? For recent news bites and your reading pleasure, our public relations professionals highlight headlines about insurance, bankruptcy and banking.

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While the holiday season is behind us there is one more annual tradition to prepare for: the game of musical chairs in the finance industry. Most Wall Street firms pay annual bonuses to employees either at or shortly after the end of the year. Anticipation of these payments, which may account for the majority of total compensation, tends to cause employees to time their job hunts to minimize the amount of bonus money they leave behind with a former employer.

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New legislation currently in the Senate creates a new agency that will police mortgages, credit cards, personal loans and home appraisals resulting in significant new liabilities for credit card and other consumer lending marketers— and their communications firms could be put in the line of fire, too.

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