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RIABiz

Articles published 4/2025


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Salim Ramji:[John Bendl brings] forward-thinking leadership, and operates with humility.

Vanguard gets new CFO, Salim Ramji's second, strategic and handpicked selection • High rates but lower-balance money markets • SEC loses nearly 1-in-5 staff -- largely from its legal nerve center

Apr 29, 2025

Vanguard CEO puts John Bendl in strategic role • Money markets fall off record highs • Capital Group joins private credit goldrush • John Thiel signs on with DPL • RIA poaches top AssetMark exec, names him president.


Alex Blostein likes Schwab's return to normal growth -- and balance sheet solidity.

Goldman Sachs signals Charles Schwab Corp. is out of the woods with huge rating upgrade based on less debt, more cash and 'durable' organic growth

Apr 26, 2025

Analyst Alex Blostein pushed the target to $100 after the balance sheet looks healthiest since bank crisis, and TD Ameritrade customers are buying more Schwab products


Sarah Levy: Our plans this year are more ambitious than ever.

Betterment will add self-directed investing in 2025 as part of grander post-robo plan-- something co-founder Jon Stein admits is likely long overdue

Apr 25, 2025

CEO Sarah Levy also green-lit bridge-borrowing against investments as company moves beyond child-proof model to allow investor discretion -- and into more direct competiton with Schwab, Fidelity and Robinhood.


Adrienne Gurley: The new number will have to be a big enough number to have a meaningful change.

Top federal regulator floats putting 'mid-size' RIAs -- possibly up to $1 billion in AUM -- under sole state purview, and Adrienne Gurley provides insights in an RIABiz Q&A

Apr 24, 2025

Commissioner Mark Uyeda dropped the bomb on April 8 and Gurley, a former SEC senior counsel, offered to answer questions about serious practical ramifications.


Shan Shan: Transforming the custodial layer of wealth management is no small feat.

Altruist wins 'unsolicited' $152-million raise, including capital from Salesforce, which is midstream 'very deep integration' signalling shift to $1-billion-plus RIAs

Apr 23, 2025

The Culver City custodian now has 20-plus $1-billion-plus RIAs and average size is 43% larger as integrations with Orion, Advyzon and Tamarac lay groundwork to tackle Schwab and Fidelity


Vlad Tenev: It's kind of like the news before it happens, which I think is extremely valuable to society

Robinhood's surefire 'RIA' play -- custody and robo-advice -- just got shakier as its 'betting' ambitions go full bore and eight states (blue and red) throw up resistance

Apr 22, 2025

'DNA' and rule issues are real but legal sources say Congress could soon make the firm's gambling foray a moot point.


Rick Wurster: They'd love to work with a trusted brand.

Rick Wurster puts hard(er) date on Schwab spot bitcoin launch, after key hire and 400% surge in visits to its 'crypto site,' but isn't pulling down crypto red flags quite yet

Apr 19, 2025

The Schwab CEO expects house 'spot' trading by mid-April 2026, though Schwab's site starkly warns crypto has no 'inherent value.'


Joe Davis: Don’t chase the markets

Vanguard's deal with Blackstone follows its bleak, almost black, market prognosis • SSGA launches another 'Apollo' product, sans Apollo brand • SEC OKs 'green' exchange • Senators call out Trump 'fraud' in letter to new SEC chair

Apr 18, 2025

Recession signals grow • Confirmed as chair, SEC's Atkins faces Trump decision • InvestCloud nabs ex-Envestnet COO • Tibergien protégé lands at RIA • RIAs still see direct-indexing as a solution hunting for a problem • Software companies hire & launch.


Tim White: 'It's the year of the RFP.'

Charles Schwab Corp. buys stake in Wealth.com and became latest of Big Three to chase the $90-trillion-dollar asset hand-off

Apr 17, 2025

Aging high-net-worth investors starting to seek answers about last, big transfer hold lion's share of Westlake, Texas, brokerage's $10 trillion in assets -- a place where Vanguard and Fidelity have made recent moves, too


Salim Ramji: Will bring long-term benefits of public and private markets to even more investors.

Vanguard and Blackstone disclose joint 'initiative' to bring alts to mass investors after private 'talks' leak months ahead of planned news release

Apr 16, 2025

The 'culture clash' collaboration of the kings of two different markets could be a good high-net-worth retail strategy for each -- but they have serious stuff to work out.


David Solomon: Lamented $70 million Goldman Gulfstream jet had no shower.

Goldman Sachs CEO's taste for sleek private jets runs into flak as cost cutting sweeps the bank and shareholder advocates oppose $80 million retention bonuses each for two top executives

Apr 15, 2025

David Solomon jets around the world -- and to his luxury Bahamas retreat -- on a $70 million Gulfstream G650ER, one of two Goldman private planes.


[Left to right: Scott Bessent, Chuck Schwab and Donald Trump: Charles Schwab has been waiting for 40 years for what Trump did over the last month.

Chuck Schwab stands at Trump's side (literally) and wins President's praise for supporting policies amid tariff fallout, while Schwab's chief investment strategist raises red flags

Apr 12, 2025

Schwab co-chair intersects with Trump on policy, business [and golf,] while the company's chief investment officer Liz Ann Sonders has little good to say about government policies right now


Jonathan Craig: Schwab serves more than a million multimillionaire investors.

Schwab finally launches alts to retail investors with $5 million, five years after initial iCapital deal, but just seven days before its CEO faces Wall Street

Apr 11, 2025

The Westlake, Texas brokerage expresses urgency because 66% of retail assets are now high-net-worth -- with more than a million millionaires.


Christian Hoffmann: We’re still not out of the woods.

Never mind near 10% S&P 500 snapback, the Trump tariff war baked in 'enormous wealth destruction,' and it's hardly 'over,' asset managers say

Apr 10, 2025

Today is so much better than yesterday after stocks rallied on a tariff 'pause,' but it is still a very bad situation; the damage assessment is just starting.


Bill Singer: This is the time to go for the jugular.

BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard show swagger, unity and 'smell blood' as they fire back at charges they perniciously colluded to advance ESG goals

Apr 10, 2025

Shifting political winds may cause three asset managers with $26.72 trillion to 'go for the jugular,' Wall Street attorney says; not so fast, says a second securities attorney, 'There's a smoking gun here.'


Ken Fisher: Trump is beyond the pale by a long shot.

Ken Fisher suggests to RIA client on X to close his account if he thinks he's 'childish' for saying Trump tariffs are 'stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme'

Apr 9, 2025

The owner and CIO of Fisher Investments was not alarmed as of last week, then changed his tune but still thinks fears over tariffs are overblown.


Michael Kim: 'We will continue to invest and grow in the RIA market'

Envestnet quietly cleans up a mess behind take-private veil • Michael Kim is now a two-TAMP CEO • Bill Ackman scolds Trump, Lutnick for tariff overkill, alleged conflicts •

Apr 8, 2025

Kim is now head of 'RIA' TAMP • In broad daylight, AssetMark edges closer to swallowing Adhesion • Ackman irked over ‘massive, disproportionate’ tariffs • Fisher sees market upside, if and when tariffs fail.


Betterment's premium pricing shows the ROI of people.

Betterment trims fee despite 'no pressure,' and can still upcharge 160% over robo fee by upselling CFP humans -- more than 100% over Vanguard -- with RIA-like fees

Apr 5, 2025

The New York robo imposed 65 basis points in 2024 on humanized $1-million-plus accounts, but is not competing with RIAs and 'never has been'


Herb Morgan: '“No Cantor owner, partner or employee has ever tried to influence my macro views of the world.”

Cantor Fitzgerald IA CIO sends midday letter to RIAs with take that reassures on tariffs, and he assures reporter that any aligment with Howard Lutnick is coincidental

Apr 4, 2025

The note arrived in email boxes after the market collapsed 5% today and explains tariffs were needed and negative effects should be 'very' short in duration


Rich Steinmeier (left) and Wayne Bloom both need Commonwealth to succeed as a standalone brand.

Commonwealth and LPL CEOs are determined to share bright future after black swan HR event unlocked the opportunity

Apr 3, 2025

Wayne Bloom and Rich Steinmeier both faced hard math after Dan Arnold's shock firing as LPL CEO, but then the numbers started to add up


Walt Bettinger knows the RIA domain and 15,000 RIAs.

Walt Bettinger joining CD&R just four months after Schwab retirement could signal a big private-equity play brewing

Apr 2, 2025

The ex-Schwab CEO's appointment at Focus Partners' take-private owner, suggests the private equity player is positioning for a major move.



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