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Articles published 9/2015


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Paul Woolway is making Schwab Bank grow fast with help from RIAs.

Schwab alerts its RIAs that it will liquidate client money market holdings by Dec. 1

The San Francisco-based broker is shipping all cash in sub-$500K accounts to its bank

September 30, 2015 at 8:35 PM

Philip Paleveev:  We want them to experience what it feels like to run a firm and make decisions

Philip Palaveev and Bob Oros create Hunger Games-style RIA high jinks for Fidelity execs, then release it for wide consumption

The reality TV-Harvard Business School hybrid throws simulated market crashes, personal tragedies and M&A what-ifs at green FAs to test their mettle and groom them for succession

September 29, 2015 at 10:31 PM

The Boston Convention Center almost upstages its city -- big, bright, modern.

A palpable camaraderie accrues in Boston as FPA provides support group for lonely CFPs and the atomized niche firms that serve them

There were RIAs and IBDs galore -- but no wirehouse reps -- on hand for a much-anticipated robo slug-out between Kitces and Sokolin

September 29, 2015 at 8:27 PM

Co-founder Charlie Kroll started a successful online venture in his Brown University dorm room and appears be the day-to-day operator of this robo.

Relying on men but 'losing sleep' Sallie Krawcheck seeks to robo-reap women investors with Ellevest

Industry luminaries Joe Mansueto, Mohamed El-Erian, Ajay Banga and Robert Druskin -- never mind co-founder Charlie Kroll -- make up a stellar roster of male executives backing this play for women's wealth

September 28, 2015 at 10:46 PM

Deborah Fuhr talked SPIVA, short-hand for ETF indexing kicking active management tail end.

Amid papal euphoria, a bullish ETF event at NYC's Conrad Hotel where pros plot the next few trillion of assets

Tom Lydon's fundfest had everything from Deb Fuhr's dry intellectualism to Josh Brown's New Yok F-Bombs, with all the Powershares, BlackRock iShares, State Street power players represented

September 26, 2015 at 7:42 PM

Michael Rawson: Inflows at these funds more than make up for the effects of more frequent trading.

10 years after Eliot Spitzer, Vanguard Group changes back its frequent trading policy

The 60-day rule hurt investors more than helped, the Malvern, Pa. firm's exhaustive studies concluded

September 25, 2015 at 8:05 PM

Anil Arora:  We are powering some of the biggest financial institution, investment and wealth management entities in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, India.

This time Envestnet plays most cards face up as analysts press again for cogent Yodlee deal rationalization

Jud Bergman supposes, though not until 2020, that the merger will yield an extra $200 million in revenues

September 24, 2015 at 11:44 PM

Ken Anderson: We can continue to archive the personal pages but don't have access to those messages.

How Facebook's unfriendly new privacy strictures are edging RIAs into the social media monster's business-page boonies

Third-party data culling and archiving firms like Hearsay and Smarsh are scrambling for workarounds as the data spigot runs dry and new compliance challenges loom

September 24, 2015 at 6:10 PM

Mike Crinieri: Our clients asked us to apply our investment expertise to exchange traded funds.

The wild ride that Goldman Sachs took to launch its first ETF -- one that even an RIA could love?

Three years of leaking assets in $1 trillion Goldman Sachs Asset Management pushed Lloyd Blankfein to treat the unit like a deal leading to acquisitions, hires and an exchange traded fund strategy

September 23, 2015 at 7:42 PM

Andrew Parish: The legal fight isn't over and that there are a tremendous amount of moving parts.

The peculiar sentencing scenario involving Andrew Parish, AdvisorHUB, lenient prosecutors and an atypically forgiving IRS

The slashing blogger will continue the legal fight, he says, but for now incarceration seems inevitable

September 23, 2015 at 5:20 PM

Barbara Yastine left Ally Bank CEO role in June after the shares fell below the IPO price.

After pocketing $5.2 million in 2014 comp as Ally Bank CEO, Barbara Yastine joins Lebenthal as Frank Campanale exits

Alexandra Lebenthal takes the co-CEO role of the wealth manager and she intends to woo more female advisors

September 21, 2015 at 10:01 PM

Scott Hanson: Frankly, I didn't leave the conference deal-hungry, but it did give me some food for thought as we plan the future of our business.

Why a $1 billion-plus RIA attended Dan Seivert's two-day M&A conference despite having no intention of buying or selling

Scott Hanson came away deeply impressed by how deals could accelerate the RIA business's bid to comparability with other professions

September 21, 2015 at 6:51 PM

Dawn Bennett accounted for AUM totals by saying she managed cash for a South African telecom, a Virginia-based travel agency, and Virginia-based historical preservation group

Why legal experts expect radio personality and registered rep Dawn Bennett to be barred from the industry for what started as an exaggeration of AUM

In the great tradition of legal quagmires, the cover-up seems as much the issue as the original broadcasted misdeed

September 18, 2015 at 7:55 PM

Rocky start: Coders -- presumably tamer than the miners who used to stay at this 19th century former hotel in Park City -- were evicted after complaints from the neighbors.

Strung out on Red Bull, and stung by a red-faced landlord, 70 tech nerds and Russian-style judges, Eric Clarke pushes RIA app coders to new limits in Utah suburb

No panels, no PowerPoint no breakout sessions -- just tech whizzes from competing firms striving to integrate their systems to better serve financial advisors

September 18, 2015 at 6:16 PM

Roger Aliaga-Diaz: We are being more outspoken.

Anything but passive, Vanguard Group chides Yellen for mistaking market static for market signals in leaving rates alone

Roger Aliaga-Diaz is concerned that the Federal Reserve itself stoked market volatility then cited it as a reason to stand pat

September 17, 2015 at 11:27 PM

Bing Waldert: They can go to the guy they trust and just use that person.

Report: 'Brother-in-law' dabblers are giving 401(k) ground slowly to specialists in $1.3 trillion market

Some RIAs disagree with Cerulli's pessimism and say DOL is having its effect with small employers seeking real experts to provide 401(k)s to employees

September 17, 2015 at 6:36 PM

Schwab is spending on average $1illion to open a branch -- but these aren't your father's discount broker B spaces as this Woodland Hills, Calif. location shows.

Scrutinizing -- and celebrating -- Schwab's plan to build 150 branches, at $1 million per throw, and people them with thousands of home-grown advisor talents

The renaissance involves minting advisors as Schwab's retail chief Teri Kallsen offers up a bold vision of bigger, better branches

September 16, 2015 at 6:49 PM

Bill Harris says his retirement planning tool is 'the best one out there based on its balance between simplicity and sophistication.'

Almost lost in the robo shuffle, Personal Capital, in its 'special category,' is winning as told by an overlooked metric: revenues

Silicon Valley pioneer Bill Harris is struggling to goose the faltering free-to-premium conversion rate while keeping a weather eye on the big guys barging onto the field

September 15, 2015 at 6:11 PM

David Steele: I still wasn't an entrepreneur in what I was best at. Nobody knew that.

How David Steele opened six restaurants in the toughest foodie market in the US and then found the nerve to leave JP Morgan

The Bear Stearns veteran deliberately chose Uber-, Twitter- and Dolby-adjacent offices in a trendy San Fran neighborhood

September 14, 2015 at 6:01 PM

Jon Stein: No one has done this since Fidelity came into the space.

Betterment jumps headlong into the 401(k) business spurred by a conviction that even Vanguard Group is unfriendly to investors in this arena

The New York robo-advisor is going full stack, competing with Fidelity Investments on everything from recordkeeping to financial advice

September 11, 2015 at 2:22 PM

Lincoln Ross: That picture the advisor gets in sitting down with a client changes potentially the moment the client walks out the door.

A long-form explanation of why -- Wall Street be damned -- Envestnet's purchase of Yodlee might make sense

Nothing will deter the Chicago outsourcer from a future infused with data, according to Envestnet strategy chief Lincoln Ross, who'll shoulder the credit or take the blame for the deal's outcome

September 10, 2015 at 7:59 PM

Steve Wagner (center): I think there's something really cool about working with families.

The inner orchestration of Dynasty, Addepar and Pershing/BNY Mellon it took to harmonize a $1.4 billion Merrill Lynch family office team

Vendors are finding ways to put UHNW corner family offices on conveyor belts in the service of RIA prosperity

September 9, 2015 at 8:21 PM

Maria Daley: It was such a great opportunity that I couldn't not get that job. I had to seize it.

After winning a $1-billion RIA, Raymond James fills a void by hiring a true-blue elite RIA executive

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based maestro of advice channels is hiring an RIA custody virtuoso with Schwab and Fidelity training

September 4, 2015 at 6:46 PM

Edmond Walters is making an exit, as bold in nature as his entrepreneurial reputation.

Edmond Walters bolts from eMoney and Fidelity Investments scrambles to manage the jilt

Six months after the $250-million deal, the entrepreneur leaves with no public explanation and Mike Durbin takes his CEO spot for now

September 3, 2015 at 7:44 PM

Bo Lu is said to have parlayed an introduction to Larry Fink into a lucrative liquidity event.

Why BlackRock's purchase of FutureAdvisor for $152 million could be a deal of destiny

FutureAdvisor will nestle into BlackRock's risk management unit armed with iShares while Wealthfront and Schwab favor Vanguard ETFs

September 2, 2015 at 7:52 PM

Dave Mrazik: This is, without question, a defining moment.

Citing 'Moss Adams' vision, MarketCounsel makes 17th hire in nine months

Quarterbacking the mass assemblage, David M. Mrazik, former general counsel at the New York-based roll-up, becomes managing partner

September 2, 2015 at 6:04 PM

Lowell Putnam: Our vision is to take data that used to take weeks or months and we want to get that to advisors on a daily basis.

Quovo rakes in $4.75 million from VC backers and a triumvirate of angel RIAs: Carson, Bicknell and Lockshin

The mini-Yodlee is ready to play the feisty startup role in the RIA account aggregation market

September 1, 2015 at 5:05 PM

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