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RIABiz

Articles published 2/2024


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Howard Milstein: 'I'm thrilled to have finally recruited Liz to the team after collaborating with her.'

'Second to none' Liz Nesvold, enters the PE game and may help give Karl Heckenberg and Joe Duran a run for their money?

Feb 29, 2024

The Emigrant Chair fell out with Mark Hurley then lost Karl Heckenberg, but he 'finally' signed the Silver Lane flash to his obvious delight


Stephen Caruso: RIAs that have turnover can find themselves disrupted.

Plague of failed hires at strapped RIA firms 'come back to bite them,' making the process of closing bandwidth deficits falter, two new studies show

Feb 28, 2024

Turnover rates hover near 50%, Cerulli and Ensemble report, and may be worsening as hires in market of talent scarcity has inevitable backlash.


David Welling: It's not only who we are but who we want to be.

Mercer is hiring ex-Schwabbies like crazy after five-year AUM jumps from $9B to $56B -- with a big bump in the past 12 months -- using 100 IARs who only sell the RIA as chum for M&A

Feb 27, 2024

The Denver RIA poached high-level McKinsey talent as CFO and a smattering of Schwab, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, LPL, and RBC talent to keep up with growth and ambition of late bloomers.


Dan Arnold: We're much better than we were three years ago when we brought our first larger enterprises .

Dan Arnold is using force and finesse to make LPL a deal machine -- giving Atria and its brokers incentives to come aboard and Fidelity and Pershing a reason to play ball

Feb 24, 2024

The soon-to-be 24,000-advisor Fort Mill broker-dealer will keep existing custodians (for now), pay big retention bonuses and a generous deal kicker to Atria if it all transfers well


Bill Crager: Chose to leave because he had teed up the company for next leaders.

Envestnet shares popped -- up 8% today -- after Wall Street filtered out bad news and staked its bet on confidence in a new team

Feb 24, 2024

The Berwyn, Pa., firm sugar-coated nothing but ended up with a sweet stock price result as analysts see good outweighing bad.


Tom Sipp: [Envestnet Data & Analytics] had a lot of challenges in 2023, [including] a data-loss now restored.

On Bill Crager's last CEO call, Envestnet does bad-news dump -- a big Yodlee-related write-off -- but dangles bright future where Tamarac becomes the mouth of its sales funnel

Feb 23, 2024

The outsourcer swallowed a $191-million bitter pill, explained the data disaster that led to it, offered minimal forward guidance on results, or a future CEO, but Tamarac RIAs are catching on as SMA clients and imminent RIA custody is deemed 'extremely strategic'


Tim Oden: 'It's hard not to get excited about having a seat at the table.'

Tim Oden departed Schwab after 37 years and was flooded with industry offers, but Shirl Penney made one he couldn't refuse -- a seat at the table

Feb 22, 2024

The RIA sales wizard joined Dynasty Financial Partners with understanding he would leave sales behind and earn his keep by focusing on strategic ideas.


Alan Moore: I expected to have 15-to-20 calls with advisors, but have ended up talking to over 60.

Michael Kitces and Alan Moore swoop out of semi-stealth mode on 'Sapphire' with prices, wait list, rules, hard dates and a healthy fear of growing too fast

Feb 21, 2024

Launching first with a small group of six advisors -- likely ten by year-end 2024 -- Michael Kitces and Alan Moore intend to turn XYPN Sapphire into a growth engine.


Jeffrey Young: 'Owner’s equivalent rent' is not a cash payment.

The shocking -- 50% higher than expected for January-- CPI might be an explicable 'shelter' anomaly but 'ill-understood inflationary forces' still loom as broader threat

Feb 20, 2024

When it comes to Dept. of Labor statistics there are quirks in data inputs on rent increases, including rents that only exist from an accounting standpoint.


The Empire State Building is caught up in a legal battle over Adam Bold's Hollywood agency.

Adam Bold fires back at Hollywood talent agency partners with blistering allegations that mirror claims against him in raucous legal battle

Feb 16, 2024

The Mutual Fund Store founder says his partners engaged in 'betrayal, manipulation, and greed,' causing his talent agency to implode.



Adam Bold was a showman as an RIA who had started out as a Smith Barney broker.

Adam Bold, the RIA who went Hollywood -- literally -- after his Mutual Fund Store cash out, is accused of 'general chaos' at his Tinseltown talent agency

Feb 14, 2024

Business partners made the lurid allegations in a lawsuit that's scandalous even by Hollywood standards, charging Bold's aberrant behavior has driven the agency to the brink of bankruptcy; Bold calls it a 'shakedown.'


Megan Pacholok: T. Rowe's target date funds have performed well.

T. Rowe Price criticized in 2020 for radically hiking equities -- and risk -- in target date funds, now sees bet pay-off as S&P 500 and TDF returns soar

Feb 13, 2024

87 year-old Baltimore fund shop now ranks behind only Fidelity and Vanguard in TDF market with one of the most aggressive strategies in the industry.


Josh Brown [left] with Rich Cancro: 'We had friends [at] BlackRock, and we got a call..

At T3 event Josh Brown explained how his RIA, Ritholtz, got FutureAdvisor -- and hundreds of millions of AUM -- from BlackRock, along with a daunting software puzzle

Feb 10, 2024

The Las Vegas-based session included AdvisorEngine CEO who apparently played a white-knight role in transitioning a complicated robo from the giant asset manager to the outspoken RIA shop


Maggie Serravalli keeps showing up in top roles.

Fidelity hits staggering $12.6 trillion in 2023, bids adieu to headhunted retail chief, beats Schwab's performance -- not least because it doesn't own a bank -- and sees Maggie Serravalli's star shine

Feb 9, 2024

Retail was Fido's weakest division with 3% growth and its chief departed; it's B2B units -- 401K and custody/clearing -- jumped 6% each; Serravalli now serves as the company’s chief administrative officer.


Marty Bicknell:  Existing clients and prospects [can expect] additional services.

Marty Bicknell grew to $100 billion AUM brick-by-brick, then -- boom -- added an AUA boulder, keeping Mariner Wealth in the AUA game with same-city rival Creative Planning

Feb 8, 2024

Mariner Wealth's purchase of two pension consultants with a combined $104 billion in AUA adds fees, services, footprint and a whopping top-line asset number north of $200 billion to keep it interesting in Overland Park.


David Lau: 'Annuities are often the last thing tethering a firm to a broker/dealer.'

RIA annuities inflows were bigger billions in 2023 for DPL and RetireOne; now private equity will fuel at least three firms in 2024 -- including newcomer Flourish

Feb 7, 2024

The biggest driver of growth will be breakaway broker books of commission annuities that will transition as advisors move to fee-based and fee-only models.


Lisa M. Gomez: There is a particular need for automatic portability solutions.

'Portability' is set to boost and solidify $9.3 trillion 401(k) system by eliminating cash-outs, rollovers and fragmented (orphaned) plans

Feb 6, 2024

The Labor Dept. finally found the political will to make savers save and create a lifetime mentality -- with a boost from technology to make a decentralized system work in symphony.


Sean Sullivan: A partner must have a deep understanding of the 401(k) industry.

LPL Financial bristles about proposed DOL rule, but roaring recruiting, including of 401(k) advisors, bodes well for 2024, according to top LPL executives

Feb 3, 2024

The Fort Mill, S.C., broker-dealer -- and recordkeeper -- is making strong pitch to 401(k) advisors with retirement plan expertise and rollover 'tool kit' of services.


Roberta Giordano: We’ve tried many times to engage Vanguard directly ... to no avail.

Vanguard Group faces backlash for 'taking orders' from climate skeptics and spurning ESG activists, who are calling firm to account with PR campaign

Feb 2, 2024

Sunrise Project is targeting Vanguard, its staff and investors with a localized advertising blitz over NZAM withdrawal last year.


Joe Duran: I've never had in seven prior fundings something go so smoothly.

Charlesbank bets bank on Joe Duran -- 'very risky' by private equity standards -- but the 'Rise' model, capital amid scarcity and a 'Joe' factor have observers high on its prospects

Feb 1, 2024

The Boston- and New York-based blue-chip 'middle market' player stakes the Duran 'accelerator' venture $250 million with a view to a killing in a market starved for get-over-the-hump expertise and financing


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