Articles published 12/2025
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RIABiz's five top articles of 2025: Schwab goes 'discretionary' on wealth • Schwab plans to keep or self-refer all sub-$2-million accounts • Fidelity flexes its 401(k) edge • Vanguard sheds nice-guy culture with internal pitting • RIA's lawyer kills Merrill's TRO attempt on $129-billion breakaway
Dec 31, 2025RIAs quickly grasp when a move by Fidelity, Schwab or Vanguard could have an impact that shifts the ecosystem for better or worse.
Aaron Schumm just pulled off another opportunistic 401(k) recordkeeper M&A deal because of ready cash, critical mass and 'very repeatable process' of picking off stragglers
Dec 30, 2025Vestwell CEO's latest deal to buy a business's recordkeeping assets is also its largest, prompting an ad hoc VC raise from current backers who could see deal was too good to pass up.
FINNY gets $17 million to 'define category'--automated organic growth--for RIAs with major 'enterprise' deals up next, and 80% inbound calls
Dec 24, 2025The New York City AI company sees itself as front-runner in new category of automated organic growth, but its CEO admits plan involves 'Hunger Games' AI-engineering headhunting challenge in New York City.
Altruist again sells sweet 'digital' experience for young mass affluent to clinch Bryn Mawr Trust custody deal, and this time the $3-billion RIA comes with an added wrinkle
Dec 20, 2025Success on the high-net-worth stage at Bryn Mawr is also an audition for $93 billion of managed assets at its parent, WSFS.
How exactly Jamie Price got Shannon Reid to exit Raymond James for Osaic. It started with 'five minutes' then each made a big shift
Dec 19, 2025The Osaic CEO sought a top 'growth' officer but quickly shifted to 'president' and Reid was caught off guard by how the Osaic vison clicked with her.
Vanguard CEO puts second 'Fidelity talent' in c-suite in two years, reuniting Kathryn Condon and Joanna Rotenberg -- a 'smart' hire for the 'marketing machine' yet with 'cultural risk'
Dec 18, 2025Salim Ramji, himself an outside poach, is shoring up Vanguard's one apparent deficit -- its ability to appeal to the next generation of investors.
What Rich Steinmeier confided about Commonwealth deal at Goldman Sachs event was minor for LPL. For Osaic, Cetera, Raymond James and Kestra the unseen deal cost was a major reprieve
Dec 17, 2025LPL spent time, emotions and outside recruiting to convince Commonwealth brokers to join LPL, but won 'commitments' to transfer most Commonwealth assets to LPL's custody and clearing.
BlackRock launches -- almost secretively -- the ultimate 'total' fixed-income ETF and joins Vanguard with its own slew of new fixed-income ETFs -- just in time for declining rates
Dec 16, 2025The iShares product literally sells the 'full taxable US bond market in a single' product -- including TIPS and expanding exposure by 28% beyond the Bloomberg US Aggregate Index as the ultimate hedge.
Adam Birenbaum assumes the CEO hotseat at Focus Financial, becoming third chief executive in three years as Michael Nathanson steps down in 'plan' he 'designed'
Dec 13, 2025The 47 year-old St. Louis phenom takes over from the 58 year-old ex-Colony CEO but with the same steep challenge of making 70 autonomous RIA units work more collaboratively, while adding more RIAs.
Eduardo Repetto answers 10 questions about Avantis Investors improbable climb to $100 billion in its first six years -- including why he considers the milestone a 'tiny number'
Dec 12, 2025The ex DFA co-CEO and chief of the Los Angeles (mostly) active ETF shop says assets are a drop in ocean of wealth assets and $50 billion of new assets since 2024 is largely came by word of mouth.
Sequoia Financial Group hired Arch to automate alts data, and its 'pain' testimonial led to a 1099 integration with Schwab Advisor Services for mutual clients
Dec 11, 2025Sequoia, with near $30 billion of AUM, uses both firms to automate alts administration, and it helped press the case for its game partner.
NewEdge has a 1099, W-2 and RIA channel and wants to take down wirehouses -- so it hired a 17-year Morgan Stanley executive who just spent seven years at the Mark Zuckerberg RIA
Dec 10, 2025The $80-billion all-channel RIA is showing it technology seriousness by making a wirehouse operations exec its CEO.
Envestnet uses $7-trillion heft to tap Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, JP Morgan and 17-plus big asset managers to offer its tax management program to advisors for free
Dec 6, 2025The Berwyn, Pa. fund platform for 110,000 advisors is absorbing half the fee cut and getting managers to pay the other half as it executes on five-year plan rolled out by Bain Capital.
DPL discovers in-house AUM unlock, triggering leap in annuity assets, which leads to Tom McCarthy's hiring from Orion to keep it rolling
Dec 5, 2025David Lau grows the Louisville-based startup by $1.4 billion in one year by creating software to help convert becalmed brokerage annuities into RIA AUM
Vanguard's lifting of crypto ban reveals internal 'tension' between brokerage and investing units, and how new CEO Salim Ramji errs toward principled paradox
Dec 4, 2025The Malvern, Pa., giant's brokerage and its asset management prioritize 'choice' and 'belief' differently -- something apparent in its bifurcated Dec. 1 crypto announcement, denouncing its zero cash flow and celebrating liquidity of funds that hold it
Wealthfront wants just $255 million net from IPO, and warns its newfound cash flow relies on precarious, interest-rate sensitive bank products, new SEC filing reveals
Dec 3, 2025The Palo Alto robo-advisor finally broke even in 2024, thanks to the private-labeling -- and mark up -- of cash savings administered by R&T Deposit Solutions -- under favorable interest rates in 2024-2025
Pontera's last-bid gambit to turn Fidelity credential-sharing ban into an 'investor rights issue,' falls flat, and now Schwab and others are turning a deaf ear as bans spread
Dec 2, 2025The New York City fintech appealed to 33 million plan participants in a 3,000 word post, but mowed over concerns of 24,300-plus plan sponsors who hold Fidelity's fate as recordkeeper in their hands, analysts say.