Envestnet quietly deals rivals in on Yodlee play to placate big banks and their latent threat of 'oblivion' in response to 'screen scraping'

The Chicago-based outsourcer orchestrates a Yodlee/Morningstar/Quovo show of force in response to vulnerability to 'throttling' by mega-custodians

May 17, 2018 — 7:24 PM UTC by Oisin Breen

Brooke's Note: The tragedy of the RIA business is that practitioners don't check their independence streaks at the door when a collective effort would prove fruitful going up against D.C. regulators, Wall Street powers and Silicon Valley meddlers. RIA custodians could be more effective by far ...

A maverick RIA and a bank walked into a bar in 2006, 2011 and 2014. It's all settling out in a 2018 M&A & spin-off pub crawl

Boston Private lets a $9-billion RIA buy itself back to free up cash to be used to roll up more bank-minded wealth managers this time around and Peter Raimondi is back in the game

May 14, 2018 — 8:05 PM UTC by By Lisa Shidler

Brooke's Note: My number one pet peeve with roll-up owners and M&A specialists in the RIA business is the monotony of the message of what makes for a deal that lasts, prospers and even achieves, yes, synergies. It always comes down to that petri ...

Why exactly Northwestern Mutual bought a digital darling for $250 million, shut it down, orphaned its customers and declared progress

When the Milwaukee-based mega-insurer relaunches in six months, the one aspect certainly subtracted from the mix will be the cash-draining 8,000 mass market customers

May 9, 2018 — 9:23 PM UTC by By Lisa Shidler

Brooke's Note: If there were a handbook of M&A ethics, the chapter on legacy behemoths buying digital-era startups promising to democratize financial advice would read: "Dark, old-line product manufacturers are permitted to buy small, promising, disruptive, cash-burning beacons of entrepreneurial light and re-educate the ...

TD Ameritrade scores sweet exclusive deal with Vanguard that includes RIAs managing otherwise self-directed 401(k) accounts

To make up ground, Vanguard Group also partnered with Newport Group

May 8, 2018 — 12:40 AM UTC by Brooke Southall

TD Ameritrade Institutional will be the exclusive custodian to RIAs managing assets on Vanguard Group's recordkeeping platform who prefer more sophisticated choices and performance reporting.

The arrangement between the Omaha, Neb.-based broker and the Malvern, Pa.-based index giant, which involves transferring about $3 billion ...