Although Registered Investment Advisors have been around for many years, it is still a highly-fragmented and nascent industry. Youth aside, industry reports from Cerulli indicate year-over-year growth for the RIA space and predict that trend to continue, further eroding the mass dominated by banks and brokerages.
While statistics and predictions serve as a conduit for credibility, they’ve yet to create that “watershed moment” that the Focus Financial IPO has. In fact, it’s not since First Republic Bank acquired Luminous Capital in 2012 that the RIA space has received so much widespread attention as a legitimate player in the wealth management industry.
What makes this IPO so “special”?
