|
|
Industry
|
RIA Advocate Opens Fire On Bloomberg "Expose" Of The Independent Channel |
|
Wednesday, July 06, 2011 22:56
|
|
Tags: registered investment advisors The head of the Investment Adviser Association, a pro-RIA group, has some bones to pick with recent Bloomberg coverage of the independent advisory profession.
This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
David Tittsworth of the IAA all but blasts the Bloomberg story, "Safeguards Scant as RIAs Increase 39%," as inflammatory half-truth.
While he concedes that the number of RIA firms mushroomed around 39% between 2004 and 2010, he finds the notion that registered investment advisors are subject to lighter regulation than brokers dubious and "unfortunate."
Given the number of compliance professionals quoted in the story noting that 90% of all the investor complaints out there are directed at FINRA reps, he's got a point that the scaremongering focus seems out of place.
And he's right that some of the details are just plain off.
While legal action against any advisor is going to be "expensive, protracted," singling out RIAs as the problem is a little bizarre -- after all, as Tittsworth notes, it's the brokerage firms that enforce arbitration clauses in their client contracts.
If that article had you scratching your head, there's a great comprehensive rebuttal from him at AdvisorOne.
Read more...
|
|
|
Is The CFA Designation Overtaking The CFP As The Pre-Eminent Designation For Providing Financial Advice To Individuals? |
|
Wednesday, July 06, 2011 04:46
|
|
Whether financial planning will become the framework for client relationships over the next decade is a big unknown. Financial planning was on its way to becoming the way—the methodology for advising consumers in America. But the movement is stalled.
This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
I’ve lately written about challenges to the CFP business model, the future of the CFP profession, and the financial planning movement in America.
Though the financial planning movement grew rapidly in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, its future is less clear.
One complication is the length and severity of the economic downturn. While the CFP endured previous recessions the current cycle is longer and deeper. It’s eroded the middle class and shrunk the ranks of the mass affluent.
Making matters worse for the CFP designation is the growing popularity of the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Though the CFP has long been the most recognized and respected financial advice credential, CFAs have gained strength in recent years.
Growth in the two designations has been neck and neck over the past decade. About as many CFA wealth-advisors annually have entered the investment advice industry in recent years as CFPs.
Consequently, the direction of the independent financial advisor profession—toward the CFP or CFA designation—is likely to be decided in the decade ahead.
The stakes are high in this battle to become the most popular designation for financial advice professionals.
CFPs were on a roll for many years. In the 1980s and 1990s, the CFP designation was embraced by wirehouses as well as independent advisors. Now, however, wirehouse brokers seeking to professionalize have a choice other than the CFP designation.
The CFP Board’s focus on doing what it deems as best for consumers collides with positions of the wirehouses. For example, SIFMA, the trade group for wirehouses, opposes the CFP Board proposal to apply to brokers the fiduciary standard mandated under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. That’s the biggest issue to face the finance advice business in many years.
As independent advisors have grown in number, the fee-only financial planner movement—represented by the Financial Planning Coalition—is no longer as important a force in shaping the direction of the independent advisor industry. A more heterogeneous advisor industry is taking shape, populated by CFAs as well as CFPs.
The nation’s 60,000 CFP licensees will not suddenly become extinct. But the CFP could permanently fade in importance and be overtaken by the CFA. It could be relegated to the No. 2 designation for retail clients.
The CFP-CFA rivalry is going to be major theme in shaping the independent advisor industry. CFAs are more focused on investing. Their clients don’t need budgets, college funding plans, and long-term cash-flow forecasts. The clients of CFAs need risk management, strategic tax advice, and estate planning, and financial planning is not nearly as important in their work as it is in the CFP’s approach.
This battle for preeminence between the CFP and CFA designations will be be a big factor in the industry over the next decade.
Read more...
|
|
RBC Not Interested In M&A, Wealth Management Chief Says |
|
Tuesday, July 05, 2011 23:45
|
|
Tags: M&A Strike another rumored buyer from the M&A pool. RBC Capital Markets has stopped making "transformational" deals and so will probably not bid for Morgan Keegan, Securities America, or anyone else.
This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
RBC's wealth management unit is known for its well-capitalized silent parent, the Royal Bank of Canada.
But despite that kind of backing, CEO John Taft says he's switched to recruiting high-end advisors and making sure the ones he has can work more effectively.
He's not competing with the Morgan Stanleys of the world, but with the white-glove ultra-high-net-worth operations like Northern Trust and Bessemer Trust.
As a result, he says he has no interest in the kind of M&A that originally turned the unit into a $220 billion powerhouse with continent-spanning reach.
And that means we can all cross off a potential buyer for the broker-dealers that are currently out there for sale.
Read more...
|
|
Heavyweight Securities America Producer Jumps Ship To Upstart Geneos |
|
Tuesday, July 05, 2011 11:24
|
|
Tags: breakaway brokers Months of recruiter speculation have come true as one of Securities America's top brokers has left the fold for a new relationship with relatively obscure Colorado broker-dealer Geneos.
This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
Miami-based Marc Silverman grew into one of Securities America's top advisors in his 14 years there, generating over $2.5 million in annual revenue on client assets worth $250 million.
However, his once active website is now "under construction" and there are reports -- confirmed by his FINRA records -- that he's jumped to advisor-owned Geneos Wealth Management for his brokerage firm.
At Geneos, Silverman will be a very big fish indeed, contributing 4% of the 230-advisor firm's overall revenue and blowing out the curve on everything from book size to return on AUM.
As it is, Geneos is relatively elite in the independent broker-dealer world. On average, its reps manage $31 million apiece and generate a healthy $255,000 a year in revenue.
The firm aims to cap its growth at 500 advisors.
Securities America is portraying this simply as the next professional step for Silverman, and not anything to do with the firm's ongoing negotiations with as-yet-unknown buyers.
Read more...
|
|
Wells Fargo Sells H.D. Vest To Private Equity Firm Parthenon |
|
Friday, July 01, 2011 11:36
|
|
Tags: M&A Non-"distressed" brokerage firms are still finding plenty of buying interest on the open market, as Wells Fargo's recent divestiture of H.D. Vest shows.
This Website Is For Financial Professionals Only
Wells Fargo was only rumored to be shopping the accountant-oriented operation around six weeks ago, but private equity firm Parthenon Capital Partners has already stepped up to buy.
Since the rumors started, a few interesting details have emerged.
First, about 400 advisors on the H.D. Vest roster went away, leaving a still-robust 4,800 advisors -- primarily tax prep professionals -- behind. Whether that's due to the looming sale or normal attrition remains to be seen.
Second, now that H.D. Vest has released its 2010 numbers, we can see that it shed $31 million in book value last year, so Parthenon is getting assets worth around $142 million in this deal.
Most of that valuation is still accounted for as "goodwill."
Finally, this deal only took six weeks from rumor to close while Ameriprise has been shopping Securities America around since late April.
Granted, Securities America is technically a distressed asset whereas H.D. Vest has no legal problems beyond not playing into Wells Fargo's overall strategy.
In an industry full of troubled brokerage firms, is that the difference between those who can find eager buyers and those who have to wait?
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 91 of 125 |
|
|
