Articles written by Kelly O'Mara
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Dissecting Blucora's giant act of financial engineering -- adding a broker-dealer to a software roll-up
M&A expert Bill Ruckelshaus' Bellevue company is paying $580 million for H.D. Vest, a crazy price by some measures but not if 5.5 million existing Blucora customers can be cross-sold
December 15, 2015 at 6:28 PM
Wealthfront takes on another Facebook vet -- a clue that going dark in Palo Alto doesn't mean going away
The last-standing pure B2C robo hopes to outwit, outlast, and outplay its competitors by out-hiring them
December 3, 2015 at 6:15 PM
Why exactly Betterment backers Marty Bicknell and Steve Lockshin became customers of rival robo and custodian TD Ameritrade
What makes the counterintuitive step work is how Jemstep helps round up the mass-affluent's mess of paperwork
November 25, 2015 at 5:55 PM
How many RIAs are there? No, seriously, how many?
Competing counts are full of 'bastardized' definitions of 'advisor,' state vs. SEC- vs. dually registered IARs, differing study criteria and agendas
November 11, 2015 at 7:57 PM
The odd case of MetLife's claim that it's being bullied by LPL
The $60 billion market-cap insurer alleges LPL was underhanded in luring away 60 employees -- but thousands have already left its broker-dealer without LPL's help
August 18, 2015 at 5:07 PM
How an ex-Goldman superstar asset gatherer in LA is bringing her bazooka to the RIA knife fight
Growing up in a West Egg-East Egg scenario among the Long Island rich, Amy Parvaneh burnished her credentials with unusual Parisian luxury brands training, a Duke MBA and a dramatic Wall Street debut
August 10, 2015 at 7:28 PM
Why SigFig is shifting its focus to using banks as middlemen despite having captive consumer audience with $350 billion
The San Francisco-based robo-advisor has trepidation about the scale it would take to handle the conversions after bad experience
July 21, 2015 at 7:13 PM
How a software-flummoxed ex-Merrill Lynch private banker set up shop, invented his own dashboard and is selling it to top RIAs
David Benskin is bringing on talent from eMoney, Black Diamond and Envestnet to grow Wealth Access
June 25, 2015 at 5:13 PM
BloombergBlack rematerializes as CircleBlack minus Bloomberg
John Michel salvaged the lessons learned and momentum of a venture that was on a roll when its plug got pulled
July 15, 2014 at 5:19 PM
An ex-Lehman exec with a 2008 crash sideline seat becomes Mr. Inside for the TAMP, roll-up and RIA where Michael Kitces is Mr. Outside
Pinnacle has hit $1.3 billion of AUM and is pushing forward aggressively with hires, strategic plans and offering 'office hours' with the planning research head dubbed 'stump the Kitces'
July 10, 2014 at 5:22 AM
Two years in, Advent Software gives itself a Sept. 30 deadline to release the middleware that will draw Axys users into the Cloud
Advent Direct is groundbreaking and breathtaking in its ambidexterity but is it enough to stop the feeding frenzy by Tamarac, Orion and other cloud natives
May 29, 2014 at 2:34 AM
Why Mike Sha has a 2015 goal of $1 trillion in robo-assets for SigFig and where Marissa Mayer fits in
The ability of the ex-Amazon whiz to make slippery YahooFinance users sticky appears to be the get to launch this fueled-up rocket
May 27, 2014 at 2:34 AM
The two big moves Motif is making as Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan invest part of new $35-million raise
The San Mateo start-up online broker will take its act overseas and build out a smart beta effort with Dimensional Fund Advisors' hundreds of billion of AUM in mind
May 13, 2014 at 7:00 PM
How Jeff Maurer is now ploughing into Florida using his old Evercore tricks but with new GenSpring wrinkles
The U.S. Trust-alumni RIA shows no sign of let-up at $5 billion of AUM
April 29, 2014 at 6:28 AM
How Morgan Stanley and a lesbian super-producer came to grief in South Carolina and why she alleges bias
The wirehouse's response: Libby Cherrington is using the gay issue to distract from a $6.7 million loan that has gone unpaid by the AIG rep
