Oisin Breen
Articles written by Oisin Breen
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Tifin Group CEO slashes 10% of staff -- and his own pay -- to cut $10 million from annual 'burn' in the 30 days after $109-million 'D' raise
CEO Vinay Nair and eight other senior executives took a 20% pay cut, but Tifin continues to hire, and the software roll-up is open to making fresh acquisitions
June 14, 2022 – 12:06 AM
Shorts: ESG forces Vanguard, BlackRock, SSGA to choose on abortion • Schwab uses money and brand to correct white-male CFP supermajority • S&P 1500 pensions overfunded despite underwhelming 2022 returns • Vanguard closes gap on BlackRock as top institutional manager • Musk puts Orion on Twitter map
Culture war envelops ESG. 'Big-three' face crisis on abortion rights • The population is 50.8% women, 13.4% Black, 18% Latinx, but 76.6% of financial planners are white men. • Schwab funds CFP effort to rebalance • S&P 1500 pension plans are running a $55 billion surplus • Vanguard nears BlackRock institutional asset sum • Daniel Crosby lures behavioral finance interest, via Diet Coke.
June 11, 2022 – 1:05 AM
Orion speed-closes Redtail purchase in 48 days, so Eric Clarke can get right to work stacking it with four other M&A deals in two years at his Omaha mothership
Clarke now 'holds all the cards' to 'own the desktop' of hundreds of thousands of advisor firms, one consultant says, but analysts wonder whether Orion really has the 'bandwidth' to make a tech stack out of so many towering silos.
June 9, 2022 – 1:39 AM
An unprecedented wave of 'disruptive' competitors are challenging 'The Big Four' RIA performance reporting firms by thinking past 'the cloud' and bundles
Black Diamond, Orion Tamarac and Addepar built a $10 trillion mountain of AUA by taking RIAs to the cloud, but a number of firms are emerging to challenge the status quo.
June 2, 2022 – 3:50 AM
BlackRock to curb ESG 'social justice' proposals with its voting power this proxy season and embrace big oil, claiming Ukraine war, Russian embargo demand climate goals reset
The New York City manager of $9.6 trillion races to redefine -- and resuscitate -- reeling 'ESG' after the Ukraine war exposed perils of charging a premium fee to contain free market forces.
June 1, 2022 – 3:22 AM
Goldman Sachs turns big page on United Capital with big changes for Joe Duran and FinLife, giving its home-grown executive money, mandate and HR muscle to create national RIA
The New York investment bank's radio silence on its staggering $750-million RIA purchase in 2019 comes to an end with the beginning of the David Fox era.
May 27, 2022 – 1:01 AM
Betterment reveals that it now owns Seattle crypto firm and that it will be a 'centerpiece,' yet the deal timing means it could be a 'big blunder,' Morningstar analyst says
The New York City robo-advisor closed Makara deal in March, skipped any PR, and will Betterment-ize it for Summer launch; never mind the collapse of the token market
May 24, 2022 – 2:33 AM
Vanguard may be shorting much vaunted 'owners' of its low-cost index funds as it upshifts to more Wall Street-style exec-comp to thwart competitors and chase high-net-worth investors
Shareholder profits at the Malvern, Pa. company are being undercut by undisclosed millions in executive and staff pay raises as the company seeks to shore up its eroding value proposition.
May 15, 2022 – 7:15 PM
Envestnet go-private sale odds plummet after Bill Crager's answer to analyst's question over the possibility; stock craters, cutting chances of it happening to one-in-four, analyst says
Investors responded to the Envestnet CEO's remarks -- and analyst takes - of yesterday's earnings call by sending company shares down sharply, while president Stuart DePina's future role remains murky.
May 6, 2022 – 7:24 PM
Schwab and Salesforce proclaim fresh RIA data solidarity two days after Orion buys Redtail with RIA CRM data nirvana the merger's implicit promise
The two uneasy downtown San Francisco neighbors promise better cooperation soon for RIAs as Eric Clarke and Brian McLaughlin find common cause, and TDA RIAs get set to become Schwab RIAs in 2022.
April 29, 2022 – 11:25 PM
RIABiz Skinny: Vanguard purges a last vestige of crypto from its platform • Onramp raises cash lifeline after CEO kerfuffle • Max Schatzow questions whether Cathie Wood gets SEC hall pass • Schwab shares correct on earnings then get re-walloped 'sorting'
Malvern, Pa. giant does opposite of hedge crypto • Onramp lives on despite Tyrone Ross off ramp • RIA blogger sees SEC double standard • Schwab's revenues and 'sorting' have Wall Street out of sorts.
April 23, 2022 – 1:44 AM
Fresh off a $440 million raise, iCapital CEO Lawrence Calcano is ready to dream the impossible--to unite the alts industry in order to dominate it-- despite doubters who say it's a proven exercise in futility
Venture anchored by BlackRock, Blackstone, KKR, Apollo and the Carlyle Group may realize a dominant role by releasing a lingua franca to eradicate data protocol fragmentation.
April 22, 2022 – 2:10 AM
After micro-fee subscriptions take off, Sallie Krawcheck pulls down $53 million in self-described B raise--then bites the hand of VCs that refuse to feed her chronically in-the-red company
The Ellevest CEO has a 3-million member community and $1.4 billion in AUM after eight years, but has had to make do while 98% of VC funds go to male-run companies, she asserts.
April 15, 2022 – 2:44 AM
Matt Brown banks $100 million for CAIS but gives up 10% stake as urgency to buy capabilities begins to surpass how much they cost
As iCapital presses its advantage and Joe Lonsdale threatens to enter the market, the CAIS CEO is bootstrapping nothing as the alts market finally starts to explode after years of crying wolf.
April 7, 2022 – 3:52 AM
After co-founder Rob Foregger departs NextCapital, the CEO turns around and sells the company to Goldman Sachs, which calls it 'another tool'
The Chicago 401(k) robo-advisor became a ‘plug-in’ versus a ‘platform,’ relegating it to a guest role, a pragmatic move, yet, perhaps, diminishing its destiny.
