SEC private-access plan doubles as an RIA fee overhaul
The reported performance-fee provision would hit existing RIA contracts before retail access widens.
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SEC private-access plan puts performance fees front and center
A reported SEC proposal would open private markets to more retail investors and allow advisers to charge performance-based fees more broadly, but the fee change is what will land in existing RIA contracts first.
Savant's Socha buy is a template for founder-led sellers
A $542 million Corning acquisition barely moves Savant's $56.5 billion book. The member-owner seat for the seller's CEO is the template worth watching.
Sowell builds an in-house tax team for $5 million households
The Arkansas RIA's Advanced Planning Group puts estate and tax depth behind Cache River Private Wealth — a build-versus-buy bet on keeping wealthy families.
Grimes' tax-practice deal is a retention play
The $7 billion RIA bought eight CPAs and 800 clients to make tax depth part of retaining the households it brings in.
Advisors go home as U.S. equity bias deepens
Fidelity's look inside 5,579 advisor portfolios finds a homeward rotation, and a quarter of books hold no international equities at all.
The SEC's Private-Markets Gate Is Becoming a Distribution War
A rulemaking that opens private assets to retail investors will move the fight from who qualifies to who can explain illiquidity.
UBS hires $1.4B Bernstein team, betting the client network travels
The four-advisor liftout prices talent at $2.9 million per advisor and tests whether the athlete-and-entertainer network follows them to Century City.
AssetMark hires a Russell CMO as the platform fight turns to messaging
The September 1 appointment puts a former asset-manager marketer over brand and advisor engagement at the Concord, California-based platform.
Allworth and Sequoia buy capabilities, not just AUM
Two tax-led deals point RIA M&A toward its next front: planning expertise.
Allworth's $947M double deal is a tax-capability bet
Two tax-led firms push Allworth past $40 billion and show where its private-equity capital is going.
Eleven breakaways, 979 moves: custody is now the contract
The breakaway has become a rounding error; the month's deals show the talent war is being fought over custody networks and whole enterprises.
Altruist pushes Hazel into full financial planning
Days after Vanguard said it would acquire Altruist for $4.6 billion, the custodian's AI tool now spans retirement, estate, tax and more—and works for advisors who custody elsewhere, a direct challenge to standalone planning software.
Orion adds BlackRock, Fidelity and Vanguard models to its tax engine
The TAMP is wrapping other managers' models in its tax technology, and Vanguard's participation shows the tax layer is becoming the product.
Cyndeo hires Dynasty's Casey Jorgensen to run growth
The $3.7 billion RIA is installing a platform-trained operator to turn recruiting, M&A, and organic growth into a single scalable engine.
Sequoia's BSW buy is an integration play
The Akron RIA's second $1 billion-plus deal of 2026 brings in-house tax and estate services into a $34.9 billion platform.
Wealth Enhancement adds a $376 million Virginia tuck-in
The four-person Glen Allen team brings a wirehouse-to-independent-to-consolidator arc to a buyer already stacking small deals this summer.
Advisor moves jump 16.2% as the platform war moves to retention
Diamond Consultants counted 11,172 experienced advisors switching firms in 2025, and the firms winning the next round are selling continuity, not checks.
Merit's first CTO turns the roll-up trade into an integration trade
After 61 acquisitions and $30.1 billion in assets, the Atlanta RIA's next test is whether 55 offices can produce one client statement.
LPL's Linsco pitch is winning wirehouse talent
Three advisors left Morgan Stanley and RBC for a W-2 independent practice, the latest proof LPL's employee channel is the toughest rival the big banks have.
Hazel turns the financial plan into a commodity
Altruist's AI planning agent collapses a specialist shop into a single advisor, forcing the RIA's core deliverable to reprice.
Hightower hands Dispatch the keys to its data layer
The Signature Wealth deal is a bet that the next phase of RIA M&A runs on integration, not aggregation.
Custody's new battlefield is the software that moves the book
Hightower, Altruist, and Cetera are turning onboarding speed, planning portability, and open-architecture support into recruiting weapons that rival transition cash.
Oppenheimer's Berry hire buys access to the NIL era
The $6 billion Robinson Group is buying a door into the NIL era with a recognizable name.
Altruist's AI planner is a wedge into rival custodians
The Hazel planning agent works over any custodian's books, putting the planning layer ahead of the custody account.
Grimes brings tax prep in-house as mid-sized RIAs chase retention
The $7 billion RIA's purchase of a Massachusetts tax shop, backed by Rise Growth, points to a tax and estate push among mid-sized firms and a bet on keeping $5 million-plus households.
Hightower bets its employee channel on Dispatch's data layer
The $28 million fintech's transition software turns back-office speed into a recruiting pitch for a $35 billion channel.
MAI puts an integrator in charge of growth
Carlyle-backed MAI adds a 30-year operations veteran to its top leadership as the buying spree gives way to integration.
Partners Group names co-CEOs after profit falls 13%
A two-person corner office signals a deliberate transition at the Swiss private-markets manager.
LPL takes Mariner's $31B network in one swoop
The Mariner Advisor Network deal moves the custody wars from team-by-team recruiting to a fight for whole enterprises.
HIG taps Blackstone exec for Asia private-wealth push
The hire puts private wealth at the center of HIG's Asia fundraising mandate.
Brown Advisory files a second venture feeder in ten days
The $12.3 million Form D landed a week and a half after a $29.9 million venture feeder, its '- B' suffix marking a planned series rather than a one-off.
Wenk sells Altruist to Vanguard, keeps the Bogle faith
The founder who took $4.6 billion in cash says the money was never the point; the custody race has reset, and the Bogle disciple now has to prove the mission survives Vanguard's governance.
Banking for breakaways with the conflict removed
Fieldpoint Private exited wealth management before launching Benchmark with Max, a concession that makes the RIA banking pitch credible.
&Partners lands its 123rd practice with an $838 million Wells team
The St. Louis hybrid’s alumni pipeline keeps compounding as Wells Fargo fights attrition on two fronts.
Altruist's $4.6 billion cash sale resets the exit math for startup custodians
The all-cash Vanguard deal puts a price on the dual track — and leaves the IPO story looking thin for everyone still standing.
World Advisors rumor marks the RPA roll-up's exit
A sale of the $73 billion platform would turn the 26 remaining aggregators into inventory and confirm that the cross-sell thesis is dead.
World Advisors sale rumor marks RPA consolidation's exit phase
A rumored sale of the $73 billion platform would confirm the benefits/P&C cross-sell story behind RPA aggregation has broken, leaving the 26 remaining aggregators as inventory.
Cetera’s Sierra Ridge win is a bet on the OSJ model
The $2.1 billion lift-out brings a 40-advisor recruiting pipeline with plans to launch an RIA.
The $642M the SPV noise nearly hid
Three announcements and one close moved institutional money into property and credit, dwarfing the micro-fund flow that dominated the day's filings.
&Partners' alumni edge lands another Wells team
The 123rd practice to join the ex-Wells founders' hybrid shows the alumni channel has become the wirehouse's hardest problem.
UBS's $1.4B Bernstein liftout prices talent at $2.9M per advisor
A four-advisor move that puts production at $2.9 million per head, and resets what recruiting a private wealth team costs.
The $10 million client is a product-shelf problem
WealthManagement.com reports households are outgrowing their advisors' menus from within—and the shelf that wins will be rebuilt around the sale itself.
UBS is out-hustling independent RIAs
PWD's 30-day tracking shows UBS logged 160 market events, nearly 40% more than the nearest independent aggregator.
Cetera's OSJ play wins $2.1B Sierra Ridge from LPL
The $2.1 billion OSJ is leaving LPL after 13 months to launch its own RIA on Cetera's Blueprint, a sign the OSJ war is now a platform contest.
Who owns the platform: the RIA diligence question
A record 2025 deal count turns the capital stack—who owns the platform and what the owner wants—into the question advisors should carry into every recruiting conversation.
The $34 trillion women-wealth gap is a design problem
Firms that build for bandwidth, not education, will own the next decade's books.
Cetera lands $2.1B LPL OSJ after 13-month tenure
Sierra Ridge's quick flip suggests open architecture and transition support now carry as much weight as payouts in platform decisions.
Wealthier advisors, unhappier jobs: the real exit is the title
Record practice valuations are creating a generation of wealthy, restless owners who need to sell the job, not just the book.
Independents are now raiding each other
A single day of Commonwealth defections shows liftouts have moved from wirehouse exits to rival independent platforms.