Advisers at Colonial Brokerage will have to find a new broker-dealer to operate under now that BB&T Corp. (BBT), which acquired its parent company Colonial BancGroup Inc. last month, won't be buying the assets of the brokerage business, Investment News reported Thursday.

Colonial Brokerage's 270 advisers were told Wednesday that BB&T isn't buying the retail brokerage arm, which will mean the advisers need to find a new broker-dealer to operate under by November, Investment News reports.

BB&T representatives weren't immediately available for comment.

BB&T is a full-service financial institution based in Winston-Salem, N.C., with 29,000 employees and more than 1,500 locations.

BB&T's acquisition of the Montgomery, Ala.,-based Colonial BancGroup was assisted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Published reports say that Colonial Bank failed because of bad loans to real estate developers in Florida and Las Vegas.

-By Annie Gasparro, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5174; annie.gasparro@dowjones.com