Our weekly insights for advisors: Articles authored by our team designed to broaden your perspective and arm you with knowledge—because knowledge is power.
By Louis Diamond – We are in the midst of a “seller’s market,” where announcements of mergers and acquisitions continue to dominate the headlines. In the first half of 2019, Fidelity Clearing and Custody Solutions reported 73 M&A transactions; of those, 67 were RIA deals totaling $69.5B in assets, and 6 were IBD transactions weighing in at $391B. Additionally, movement out of the traditional brokerage world has continued to accelerate.
By Mindy Diamond – There is no time like the present to take a step back and revisit your goals—and the plan to achieve them. Stopping to back up the train means clearing your mind and visualizing where it is that you’re trying to go and why. Essentially, it gives you the permission needed to re-vet the expectations you have of yourself, your firm and your future.
By Louis Diamond – Conversations throughout the wealth management industry have escalated around the topic of “enhanced” sunset programs with talk that the advisor elite at Merrill Lynch will be offered a “retention deal” in the near future.
By Barbara Herman – A firm’s name once meant everything to most advisors—both in terms of defining which firms they would consider joining and how they marketed themselves. Then the financial crisis hit and dramatically altered the perceptions of advisors as well as their clients—and the brand cachet of brokerage firms no longer carried the guarantee of credibility, strength and trust it once did.
By Mindy Diamond – Rumors are swirling that a Merrill retention package for their advisor elite is pending announcement. And while Merrill and other wirehouse advisors feel they are in line for a retire-in-place program like that of Morgan Stanley, certain realities simmer in the background, the most prominent being, “There is no free lunch.”
By Allison Brunwasser – In a previous article, With Demand Comes Supply, Deborah Aronson discussed how service and platform providers have evolved to serve the needs of a growing population of prospective breakaways in the $50 to $150mm range—and advisors in this constituency who are seeking independence now have plenty of options to choose from. Yet with optionality often comes “choice overload”—that is, with all the available options, many advisors get stuck when attempting to discern one provider from another.
By Deborah Aronson – A new breed of service providers has emerged, designed to cater to the needs of a growing population of financial advisors who have their sights set on independence. For a population of advisors that previously had limited options in the independent landscape, a new world awaits.
By Mindy Diamond – The formation of teams within big brokerage firms is often seen as a win-win scenario. For advisors, there is strength in numbers when serving clients and building their businesses. For the firms they work for, teams represent an even bigger advantage and a hidden retention agenda: That is, it’s harder to recruit away a group of advisors than it is an individual because solving for varied risk tolerances and divergent sensibilities amongst multiple constituents can be far more challenging.
By Louis Diamond – Many independent firms reach a point in their business lifecycle where they can no longer sufficiently grow or compete on their own. It’s when discussions around finding a way to gain scale and solve for succession hit a wall that firms often turn to considering a merger or acquisition opportunity. Yet finding the right M&A partner isn’t all that easy.
By Mindy Diamond – There’s a certain level of awe that accompanies a review of the names that appear on lists like the Forbes Top Wealth Advisors and Barron’s Top 100 Financial Advisors. Many of these individuals and others like them have broken through the proverbial billion-dollar ceiling—representing a pinnacle of achievement in the wealth management industry.
