Happy New Year! I’m on the road already, traveling to Atlanta and Omaha over the next week, followed by Las Vegas for the AICPA Advanced PFP conference. Here are this week’s stories of interest:
The Largest RIAs Race to Scale from Financial-Planning.com
[So you want to be a $1 billion firm: what do you need to do to get there? Hire great talent, differentiate yourself from your competition, and scale your technology. Easier said than done, based on feedback from some of the largest RIAs in the industry gathered by FP’s Ann Marsh.] Over the past 30 years, the fee-based RIA space has grown by leaps and bounds, from zero to close to $2 trillion in cumulative assets under management. That number is still dwarfed by the $9.3 trillion that research firm Cerulli & Associates estimates is in the hands of full-service brokerages, insurers, trust companies and banks. But the figures look poised to eventually flip as RIAs work to address their top challenges: boosting their efficiency, customizing their technology and differentiating themselves from the competition.
LPL makes big advance into the RIA business with Fortigent acquisition from RIABiz.com
[Why should RIAs cater to high-net-worth individuals? Well, that’s where the money (e.g. revenue) is. Let us hope that after LPL’s acquisition of Fortigent, the company can truly apply its newly-acquired service model ‘down market’ in the words of Brooke Southall.] After a month of rumblings, LPL Financial made official its intent to acquire Fortigent, LLC, a top outsourcer of high-net-worth solutions and consulting services to RIAs, banks and trust companies.
Who’s Afraid of Social Media? from Financial-Planning.com
[Look, satisfying compliance requirements when using social media does not require a degree in rocket science. Yes, regulatory requirements might be ambiguous, but by applying common sense principles and some clever uses of technology (e.g. automated archiving services), advisers can successfully engage in this new dialogue without fearing the regulatory hammer.] Social media compliance is a subject that elicits a range of reactions from planners, from groans to cautious, curious questions. But Leia Farmer, the deputy chief compliance officer at Securities America, is excited about it.
