March 21, 2025
Jason Diamond Quoted
By Lilly Riddle
Advisor recruiting company Diamond Consultants released the results of its annual ‘Financial Advisor Transition Report’ on Wednesday, the fourth of its kind.
The report found that independent channels and regional firms were the biggest winners in terms of advisor gains, with net increases of 689 and 136 advisors, respectively, out of the 9,615 ‘experienced advisors’ (those who have been in the industry for at least three years) whose data was collected. Boutiques and wirehouses, meanwhile, had net headcount losses of 220 and 605, respectively.
However, the report also found that advisor movement within channels — from wirehouse to wirehouse, for example — was far more common than breakaways. These two trends, intra-channel movement dominating and independent firms excelling, are consistent with the previous two years’ reports.
Jason Diamond, an executive vice president and senior consultant with Diamond Consultants, said it’s a common misconception that breakaway movement outpaces transitions between broker-dealers, or between regional firms.
‘The stories that are the most interesting and therefore get the most media coverage are usually the big breakaway stories … A $1om team leaves Merrill and launches an RIA with Dynasty, that’s big-time news. Everybody’s curious about it,’ Diamond said. ‘Versus when a team moves from Merrill to Morgan, I don’t think people are like, “Oh, why’d you do that?” I think people generally understand that type of move, and they tend to be less in the headlines.’
At the individual firm level, Merrill was ‘on the right track’ to returning its advisor headcount to previous levels, the report stated, while UBS ‘remained stable’ for now. Diamond predicts, however, that UBS will be in the red next year.
