Louis Diamond Quoted – By Diana Britton, WealthManagement.com – Merrill Lynch Wealth Management revealed details Monday about its new advisor development training program, with perhaps the biggest change being a ban on cold-calling that will apply to the entire Thundering Herd.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Peter Rawlings and Ming Li, Financial Advisor IQ – Wirehouses fired fewer registered representatives in 2020 compared to the previous year, a Financial Advisor IQ analysis of data from regulators in the four most-populated U.S. states shows. But there are areas that firms are especially “dialed into,” including digital signature violations, non-sales practices or firm policy-related violations, says Louis Diamond, president of recruiting firm Diamond Consultants.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Miriam Rozen, Financial Advisor IQ – Another routine that has fallen by the wayside in the remote work era: the longstanding tradition of wirehouse brokers moving firms on a Friday in order to gain more time to contact customers about their move.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Charles Paikert, Barron’s – For owners of advisory firms considering entering the current M&A market for RIAs, it’s a good time to be a seller. Echelon Partners, an RIA consulting firm, recorded 205 transactions in 2020, a record high for the industry. That frenzied pace has continued this year, as demand for RIAs far outstrips supply: Investment bankers report one seller can attract as many as 20 or 30 interested buyers.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Bruce Kelly, InvestmentNews – Greg Fleming’s deep ties to his former firms, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, are paying off at his latest venture, Rockefeller Capital Management, the wealth management firm he helped launch in 2018 and is the CEO.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Andrew Foerch, Citywire – Dynasty Financial Partners will begin making minority equity investments in its partner RIAs, entering the mergers and acquisitions market for the first time. Through a new initiative dubbed the Minority Investment Capital Program, Dynasty will use cash from its balance sheet to buy stakes of less than 50% in RIAs on its platform. Louis Diamond, president of advisor recruiting and consulting firm Diamond Consultants, said the move was a ‘natural evolution’ of Dynasty’s model.
“Advisors that are wanting to sell not only because of the robust market but because they think it’s the right time to find that strategic partner want to lock in this year’s capital gains rate,” says Carolyn Armitage, a managing director of Echelon Partners, an investment bank in Manhattan Beach, California, that is focused on financial advisory firms. “Everyone is expressing an interest in closing by year-end.”
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Lynnley Browning, FinancialPlaning – The acquisition frenzy for independent advisory firms may be about to get even hotter. That’s the thinking of some industry dealmakers, who predict that President Biden’s proposal for tax increases on the wealthy will pour fuel onto the already-hot market of deals to acquire RIAs.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Dina Hampton, FinancialPlanning – Greg Clifford, founder and CEO of the Clifford Group in Newton, Massachusetts, says he “grew up” at Merrill Lynch, gaining nods as a Forbes Top Next-Generation Wealth Advisor in 2018 and Best-in-State Next Generation Wealth Advisor in 2019. But as Clifford passed the decade mark at Merrill, the idea of breaking away planted itself in his mind and stayed there.
Louis Diamond Quoted – By Jeff Martin, AdvisorHub – UBS Wealth Management USA has hired a six-person team that had been managing $5 billion in client assets at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, as well as an Ohio team from the same firm, according to separate announcements on Wednesday. Those lengthen a list of recent private bank recruits joining the wirehouse.
