Focus Financial conscripts Fidelity to bombard RIA principal/prospective clients with IPO solicitations while one research shop waves a yellow flag

The Focus IPO is a great opportunity for RIAs who do not have Wall Street on their resume to learn more about one of their competitors. Not Focus but the IPO process. Fidelity's role has historically be provided by Wall Street's internal sales professionals. Directed share programs or Friends and Family are perks the company and Wall Street offers their best clients. Clients that have done alot of business with the firms. Take notice RIAs. Wall Street has some goodies to offer that you need to understand.

Did anyone else take a good look at the different slides from the pitch video. I find #27 very interesting it lays out the various partner firms by vintage year and green check marks for characteristics of each firm. Much of the Focus growth story each year has been attributed to the sub-acquistions added by existing partner firms. Looking at slide #27 it appears that almost none of the Focus partner firms in the 2015, 2016, or 2017 vintages have conducted/completed sub-acquisitions whereas lots (almost all) of them had in the pre 2014 vintage years. I would question how much “value added” really occurs from the Focus partnership once a firm is under the roof..and would be skeptical of the lumpy, inconsistent, and suspect calculation numbers for “same store organic growth” Given that Focus is an organization staffed almost entirely by M&A professionals, it would seem the value creation is all from inorganic new acquisitions and doling out capital / resources to a narrow shortlist of pre 2014 that have demonstrated success with the sub-acquistion strategy..and I suspect that they have learned that the majority of RIAs under their roof cannot effectively pursue and be accretive with the sub-acquisition approach