TD Ameritrade's 2012 Elite Advisor Summit gathers $89 billion of RIA assets under one Laguna Beach umbrella

Showing off its growing momentum with large RIAs, TD Ameritrade Institutional convened its sixth annual Elite Advisor Summit at the Montage Resort in Laguna Beach, Calif. this week.

With its understated elegance, the Montage is one of Southern California’s most fabulous luxury hotels, tucked tightly on the Orange County coast. It is here that 160 advisors from 130 firms gathered for three days of business management content, networking, fine dining and golf. See: High-earning RIAs gather at TD’s Elite Advisor Summit.

“We’ve evolved the Elite Advisor Summit to meet the changing needs of your firms,” noted Pete Dorsey, managing director for TDA Institutional in his welcoming remarks. “This year’s conference is all about how to run a better business.”

Batting a $680 million average

This crowd was truly a meeting of the elite in the RIA industry, with an aggregate total of $89 billion in collective assets, which translated into an average AUM of over $680 million per firm. Big firms in attendance included: Beacon Pointe, Sierra Investment Management of Santa Monica, Banyan Partners, Partnervest Financial Group, McLean Assset Management and Mercer Advisors. See: The TD Ameritrade-Orion pairing again proves productive — this time to wrest assets from a $3.6 billion Schwab RIA.

Tom Nally: Focus on what you
can control.

Key themes of the conference revolved around leadership, technology and business management. Social media played a large role in the technology discussion as did opportunities for advisors to engage specialists in one-on-one consultations and the unveiling of a TD Ameritrade Institutional LinkedIn site dedicated to facilitate best practices and information sharing among advisors. See: Why the LinkedIn password theft is a big deal and how advisors can avoid falling victim.

Executive forum

Opening up the conference was an executive session that featured Fred Tomczyk, CEO of TDA and Tom Nally, president of TDA Institutional. The lively and interactive discussion covered a lot of ground, including the world economy, advisor issues and TDA’s plans for the future. See: Ten questions for Tom Nally as he gets going filling Tom Bradley’s shoes”:https://www.riabiz.com/a/13670792

“It’s hard not to call Europe a mess,” declared Tomczyk when asked about his view of global economics. “The U.S. is the one bright spot we see, although the way forward will not be smooth and full recovery is still several years away.”

Nally, in his new role as the leader of the RIA business at TD Ameritrade, provided insight into how advisors can be successful in such an uncertain world. “Focus on what you can control in your business, such as client service and profitability, don’t spend time on the things that you can’t control, while not losing sight of your growth plans,” he counseled. “It is in times like these that the best firms invest aggressively in their businesses and are rewarded as a result.”

Nally also went on to highlight the top initiatives for TDA Institutional for the coming year in technology, practice management and service. In conjunction with these infrastructure enhancements, TDA will continue to publicly back the fiduciary movement in support of advisors and focus on recruiting more breakaway brokers.

Tomczyk encouraged advisors to invest in their leadership skills in order to inspire staff and clients. “Never underestimate the power of your passion and enthusiasm. It’s more powerful than you think and it’s contagious.”

Art and leadership mash-up

Skip Schweiss is fresh off educating
legislators about problems with HR 4624.

This leadership theme was continued in the first day’s concluding keynote presentation by Erik Wahl, artist and inspirational speaker, who provided one of the more unique and engaging sessions to be had on the advisor conference circuit.

Wahl took the audience on a motivational journey to rekindle their right brain, creative side to inspire them to think differently about how to grow their firms. “In these crazy times, what is your offensive strategy? What can you do to differentiate your business and become a category of one?”

As Wahl was delivering these messages, he simultaneously painted three abstract portraits OF TK that were remarkable in their elegance, likeness — and the fact that he completed them in less than four minutes each.

Regulatory alert — 8% is indefensible

Under the specter of the potential for a new SRO for advisors, Skip Schweiss, head of Advisor Advocacy and Industry Affairs for TDA, moderated a panel of regulatory experts on the current state of affairs of HR 4624 — The Investment Adviser Oversight Act of 2012, better known as the “Bachus Bill.” See: Brian Hamburger hammers the FINRA SRO proposal in a letter.

Seagulls and RIAs alike flock to
locales like The Montage.

“We’ve all come from several days in Washington D.C. just last week, educating legislators on the many issues and problems with HR 4624,” noted Schweiss in his opening remarks. See: RIAs flood Capitol Hill with protests against a SRO-FINRA future on the day of the Bachus Bill hearing.

Neil Simon, vice president of government relations for the Investment Adviser Association provided a very good summary of how we got to where we are with this problematic piece of legislation. He noted that the SEC is resource-constrained in its scope of examining advisors and that with the passed Dodd- Frank bill mandating more inspections of advisors, there will be some form of regulatory change.

“Today, only 8% of RIAs are examined yearly and that number is politically indefensible. While HR4624 is extremely flawed and it is questionable if it will get passed, regardless of what happens, there will be some form of new oversight for advisors. It is coming.”

SRO unconstitutional?

Russ Luculano, executive director of the North American Securities Administrators Association, pointed out the many troubling aspects of the bill from the States point of view.

“HR 4624 will create duplicative regulation of advisors and it may even be unconstitutional to have the sovereign entities of the states subjugated by a private SRO.”

Northern Californian Tim Welsh was not
immune to SoCal’s charms.

Duane Thompson, president of Potomac Strategies, a D.C.-based lobbying firm provided the outlook for HR 4624. “Given that we saw a lack of support for the bill from several key Republicans, and a subsequent delay in voting on it in committee, it is highly unlikely that it will make it to the House floor this year.” See: RIAs and B-Ds don’t mix, says Duane Thompson at MarketCounsel Summit 2011.

While this prediction was met with enthusiasm by the audience, the panel did temper expectations by pointing out that while the RIA industry may have won this short-term battle, the war was far from over.

“Remember that this bill was designed by FINRA in response to FINRA losing market share, as more and more advisors leave the brokerage world for independence,” noted Simon.

“FINRA has a very large vested interest in rebuilding their revenues, have vast sums of money for lobbying and will continue to attempt to push this through. We cannot rest on our laurels.” See: Why Harold Evensky believes that a FINRA-as-devil attitude is counterproductive.

Putting out grassroots

The panel’s best advice was for RIAs to continue their grassroots approach to contacting their local Congress member and highlighting the issues involved, most notably that this bill will be a “job killer” for small businesses with its onerous fees and costs. Additionally, advisors need to prepare themselves for “user fees” to fund more frequent and painful audits.

“Regardless of what happens, you are going to be examined more often and you will have the privilege to pay for it,” concluded Simon.

Montage magic

Michael Jordan as rendered by artist
and motivational speaker Erik Wahl in
a matter of minutes as he
addressed advisors. The painting was later
sold in a silent auction for
charities including the Special Olympics and
Habitat for Humanity.

The remaining content of the Elite Summit focused on a variety of interactive leadership workshops, business development sessions, growth strategies, and a political discourse — highlighted by the celebrity political consulting husband and wife team of James Carville and Mary Matalin. The conference concluded with, of course, a round of golf on the exclusive Pelican Hill Ocean Course.

As part of the laid-back SoCal scene, conference organizers took advantage of the oceanfront views, sublime temperatures and exotic landscapes to create memorable outdoor networking dinners.

Attendees were entertained by roving musicians while wining and dining on excellent food and drink. A highlight was a live auction for charity for the Erik Wahl paintings on the first fairway of the Aliso Creek Golf Club and Frozen Shoulder venue. Funds raised? Over $17,000 by advisors, which was immediately matched by the TDA hosts to help move the needle for several great charities.

Timothy D. Welsh, CFP® is President and founder of Nexus Strategy LLC a leading consulting firm to the wealth management industry and can be reached at tim@nexus-strategy.com or on Twitter@NexusStrategy. Welsh counts TD Ameritrade among his clients.