Recruiting & transitions: archive
Every Recruiting & transitions story in Advisors, newest first. 89 stories
3 stories
Schwab's fourth Ameriprise raid reprices the breakaway math
Four teams and $10 billion or more out of Ameriprise this year make the Schwab-Dynasty playbook the template for any advisor weighing independence, custodian and package structure at once.
Altruist's AI head start makes custody choice a technology bet
Schwab's Anthropic deal brings scale and a $240 seat; Altruist's lead is measured in years, and firms switching now are already choosing sides.
Merrill sells the map while advisors get paid in equity
The same book now trades in two markets, and only one of them seats the advisor who built it.
3 stories
A $425 million team prices independence against the employee channel
Winstone's exit gives advisors weighing independence a benchmark: platform equity and a license to buy, set against what the employee-channel seat pays.
Merit's $888 million Commonwealth hire was paid partly in equity
Equity in the buyer is the package line that decides whether a breakaway keeps compounding after the signing.
The OSJ left LPL. The $825 million book stayed.
Gateway Financial Partners picks up a group that kept its LPL affiliation by changing supervisors, not platforms.
3 stories
Morgan Stanley raises the growth bar and bids for its own succession
The first 2027 wirehouse plan lifts production hurdles 10% and prices a 30-year advisor's exit above the top of its own payout grid.
Ameriprise's $1.3B exit is a custodian decision, priced at 25 basis points
The Minneapolis team kept its clients and its fee schedule; everything else it now rents from one custodian.
Osaic's rebuild starts with the advisors it still has
More than a thousand registered reps left in the year consolidation ended, and the terms a sitting Osaic advisor can still negotiate are the part of the story that pays.
2 stories
28 advisors kept an $825 million book by staying put
An OSJ's move reprices the practices inside it; the advisors who stayed just published the math for everyone else.
Merrill recruits again while Morgan Stanley makes a capacity pitch
Two wirehouses spent the same week describing opposite hiring strategies, and the difference tells advisors where a transition check is still on the table.
2 stories
The UHNW recruiting pitch has stopped leading with the check
NewEdge's 22nd office adds $1.25 billion in client assets and eight people to a platform built for multi-generational books.
Six Modern Wealth advisors left as it acquired $710 million in assets
Consolidators can buy a book; the week showed they cannot buy the advisors who run it, and the recruiting market is repricing on that difference.
1 story
A UBS team ran the LPL math and chose Raymond James
A two-year search that weighed Rockefeller and LPL ended at Raymond James' employee channel, the clearest recent test of West Coast recruiting economics.
2 stories
IBKR pitches RIAs with a fee page and a promise
The no-fee policy is the right answer to a custody market edging closer to the client; the service record behind the promise is still unproven.
Banks' upstream push hands RIAs their next breakaway wave
Fee hikes and routing rules turn mass-affluent advisors into RIAs' next recruiting class—if the destination firm can serve the clients.
3 stories
Rockefeller's double raid puts a price on the cap table pitch
Two teams carrying $950 million left Stifel and Morgan Stanley for Rockefeller, the latest evidence that advisors now price platform ownership above retention dollars.
LPL's Merrill breakaway profile omits the economics
The release confirms a 17-year Merrill veteran chose independence, but offers none of the numbers an advisor would need to model a similar move.
Raymond James hires Schwab custody veteran for client experience
For advisors weighing hybrid platforms against independent custody, the hire tests whether relationship quality, not payout grids, decides the next platform competition.
2 stories
Platform breadth is the new mid-market affiliation test
A five-adviser Wisconsin firm with Medicare and benefits desks is putting the independent-network choice to a sharper test.
Aquiline's Flourish deal makes sweep revenue share a boardroom question
The platform's cash-sweep economics, built on disclosed revenue splits with Carson, Mariner, and Focus, now sit under a private equity owner
4 stories
&Partners' seventh Wells team makes boutique RIAs a credible counteroffer
The $838 million Crown Legacy move is small next to the wirehouse's own wins, but a year of serial departures backed by equity and platform capital tells a different story.
LPL's $1.6B Cambridge win: platform capital is the retention price
A family practice that ran its own RIA in the 2000s chose LPL's scale over independence, resetting the benchmark for breakaway economics.
Cresset's $4B UBS grab resets the RIA pitch
A 16-person Boca Raton team traded the wirehouse for a family-office model, and the math on ultra-high-net-worth moves just shifted.
Cetera's enterprise channel becomes the $1B exit
Sierra Ridge's $2.1 billion move shows the recruiting war now turns on growth infrastructure, not payout grids.
4 stories
Altruist's RIA soul faces its real test at renewal
Advisors should treat Wenk's Bogle talk as cultural comfort; the renewal contract is where binding terms get set.
Cetera lands Sierra Ridge's $2.1 billion with an OSJ runway
Thirteen months after praising LPL, Sierra Ridge left for Cetera's enterprise channel — a sign that transition promises expire when growth plans outgrow the platform.
NASAA cuts third-fail retest wait to 60 days
Candidates retesting after three failures will wait 120 days less, starting Jan. 4.
A $35 option on returning to advice
NASAA's exam-extension program keeps lapsed Series 65s alive — pending state adoption.
1 story
Altruist advisors should audit pricing and product shelf before the Vanguard deal closes
A Vanguard-owned Altruist will test whether the platform's independence was real. Advisors should negotiate protections now.
2 stories
Vanguard's Altruist bet reprices every RIA custody renewal
The $4.6 billion deal doesn't move assets today, but it hands advisors leverage at the next renewal.
Vanguard's $4B Altruist bet is really about Hazel
For advisors shopping custody, the price tag says the AI engine, not the clearing platform, is the asset Vanguard is buying.
2 stories
IBD Elite's women-advisor ranking gives breakaway teams a culture benchmark
The share of women advisors at independent brokerages is a metric worth demanding in any affiliation conversation, alongside payout grids and transition packages.
Vanguard-Altruist deal turns custody independence into an open question
Advisors should watch pricing, service, and product terms for signs that Altruist's new parent is favoring its own investors.
1 story
Cresset pulls $4B UBS team, resets breakaway floor
A 16-person Boca Raton team chose a PE-backed RIA over a wirehouse, and the private-wealth recruiting math has shifted.
1 story
LPL's $1.6B Cambridge grab sets the breakaway benchmark
A 24-advisor, multi-generational team's move from Cambridge shows what a platform must offer to win a breakaway.
1 story
Goldman's late custody entry: a product, not a platform
Advisors weighing the fledgling custodian face a managed-account restriction and a nudge toward Goldman's trading and financing desks.
3 stories
Clawback verdict: $5.6 million reminder of the cost of leaving
A wirehouse broker who left after two years lost his arbitration fight over a recruiting loan — a caution for advisors weighing independence.
Edelman's TRO shows an advisor's non-solicit clause followed him to RFG
A Washington court barred a departing Edelman advisor from soliciting clients, a sign that non-solicit agreements travel with advisors into the RIA channel.
Abound's $300 Million Move Tests Prospera's 2.5:1 Support Pledge
A $300 million practice's move to Prospera puts the independent platform's 2.5:1 home-office headcount pledge in the spotlight.