Cetera Planning Partners adds advisors from The Retirement Planning Group as recruiting outruns deals
The Oct. 4 arrivals came as advisor moves across the industry outnumbered announced deals nearly three to one over the prior 30 days.
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Concurrent announces $5.4B Spire purchase and $3B–$10B platform target
Concurrent's first platform purchase adds more than 30 advisor teams and lifts pro forma assets to $28.6 billion.
RFG Advisory leads wealth management activity as advisor moves nearly triple deal announcements
RFG Advisory logged 101 events over the 30 days, and independent platforms filled much of the top of the table, with 2,180 advisor moves against 731 deal announcements.
Five retirement-focused firms produce 341 market events, more than triple UBS's 97
Advisor moves across the industry totaled 2,180 in the same 30 days, alongside 363 fund launches and 736 announced deals.
Concurrent announces Spire platform purchase, adding $5.4 billion with no price disclosed
The Tampa hybrid says the Spire purchase brings more than 30 advisor teams, and four wealth additions this week name $8.55 billion in client assets.
Northwestern Mutual, Northern Trust and Citi each add family-office governance roles
Northwestern Mutual charges advisers a retainer for access to more than 40 in-house legal, tax, lending and philanthropy specialists for clients worth $50 million or more.
OpenArc Corporate Advisory tops 30-day tally, ahead of UBS
The corporate advisory firm was named in 109 events; UBS logged 105 and RFG Advisory 95, while the industry recorded 2,308 advisor moves and 757 deal announcements.
HB Wealth acquires $700M Texas RIA; Hightower Signature adds Sandy Cove
Hightower Signature's third external acquisition of 2026 is expected to close at the end of the third quarter and would put the unit above $40 billion.
CFP Board sanctions 19 individuals under its Code and Standards
The October 2 notice names one suspended certification and points readers to FINRA and SEC records that may be more current than the board's own listing.
DigitalBridge and SoftBank close $3.1 billion deal
Harrison Street agrees to buy a majority of Vicinity Energy at a $2.92 billion enterprise value, while four of the five announced deals name an energy or clean-power counterparty.
SEC bars Clarice Crystal Saw over alleged $2.4 million theft from elderly client
Saw was registered with Cetera Investment Services in Flushing from September 2021 to June 2022 and settled the SEC's charges on September 21.
Advisor moves hit 2,555 in 30 days, outpacing 336 fund launches
AlpInvest and Bain Capital each filed Form Ds with no offering amount and $0 sold, while Raymond James added an alternatives sleeve to model portfolios.
Cerity Partners merges with Cornerstone Capital and two other RIAs in a $2 billion week
The Palo Alto RIA, founded in 1978 and owned by three partners, joins Cerity alongside firms in Minneapolis and Atlanta in a week of about $2 billion in announced mergers.
SEC accuses Meyer Global of five schemes targeting SpaceX and OpenAI investors
The complaint alleges at least $1.27 million misappropriated from private funds and nearly 100 investors deceived between December 2021 and the September 30 filing.
Envestnet seeks a chief product officer; UBS hands Naureen Hassan its US wealth unit
RIABiz reports Envestnet is backfilling Molly Weiss's product brief while UBS turns its US wealth franchise over to former Schwab executive Naureen Hassan.
Rockefeller, FiNet and Uniting absorb $3.3 billion in employee-channel books
The moves span a Truist team in Charlotte, a seven-person UBS group in Ohio and a $1 billion Morgan Stanley advisor in Olean, New York.
Claude for Financial Advisors draws a fiduciary objection over portfolio math
A WealthManagement.com column cites studies putting hallucination rates in the mid-to-high 80s on drawdown and optimization questions, against a promised saving of up to 80% of an advisor's time.
Merrill Lynch agrees to pay $39 million to settle cash sweep class action
The preliminary settlement, filed late Wednesday, covers Merrill Edge accounts from 2016 to 2020 and adds to a $25 million SEC penalty over advisory account interest.
Cerity Partners absorbs Cornerstone Capital and Echo Wealth Management, adding $1.7 billion and a Minneapolis foothold
Cornerstone Capital brings a nearly 50-year Palo Alto client book; Echo Wealth gives Cerity its first Twin Cities presence.
Fidelity tells sub-$100 million RIA clients to reach $100 million or leave by mid-2027
Concurrent announced its first platform purchase and HB Wealth closed a Texas deal this week as the June 2027 deadline makes sub-scale firms sale candidates.
Blue Owl caps two funds at 5% as a 39% redemption queue builds
Blue Owl's $5 billion Technology Income Corp. filled 5% of a 39% redemption queue, and its $35 billion sibling did the same.
CG Financial hires TradePMR and Axos executives as platform fight intensifies
Jon Patullo becomes COO and CIO of the $5 billion hybrid, while Concurrent's Spire purchase lifts it to $28.6 billion.
SEC proposes letting RIAs self-custody crypto when no permitted custodian is available
The proposal follows Congress's failure last month to pass digital-asset legislation and would require private-key management, annual security reviews, two-person authorization and quarterly availability checks.
SEC records show $8 billion Rise team moved custody from Ameriprise to Schwab
The Bedford, N.H. team's Sept. 23 re-registration accounted for about 55 percent of the $14.58 billion in advisor moves recorded that week.
Concurrent buys Spire's 30-plus teams in first RIA platform deal
The asset purchase adds about $5.4 billion and lifts Concurrent to $28.6 billion, with no purchase price disclosed.
Financial Advisor Magazine's chatbot test finds plans close to human advisors for mass-affluent clients
Steve Garmhausen fed hypothetical client profiles to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and judged the output close to what human advisors produce.
Argentina sets citizenship at $350,000 cash or an $800,000 bond
Applications are expected to open in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the $800,000 bond's terms have not been published.
WealthManagement.com column tells advisors to judge wellness tools by cross-benefit decisions
The retiretech column says EBRI's 2025 employer survey flagged trouble connecting standalone benefits alongside cost, privacy and implementation concerns.
Advisor moves outpace custodian changes by 110 to one
In the past two weeks, recruiting drew 124 stories and custody drew 84, with attention following the part of the market that actually moves.
Carlyle puts private credit's AI buildout at $1 trillion as investors seek caps
Some investors are asking the firm to cap AI allocations on the bank syndicated loan side at 8% to 10%, and the white paper warns that concentration in AI compute could prove the biggest mistake of all.
Blue Owl caps two private credit funds at 5% as tech fund requests hit 39%
The roughly $5 billion Blue Owl Technology Income Corp. saw redemption requests equal to 39% of shares in the third quarter, while the $35 billion Blue Owl Credit Income Corp. eased to 16.8%.
TradePMR product chief Jon Patullo joins CG Financial as COO and CIO
The $5 billion hybrid RIA says it will draw on his vendor relationships as it keeps investing in its technology platform.
Annuity adoption still trails client demand as cost and control objections persist
LIMRA finds about seven in 10 pre-retirees want protected income, while cost and control remain top barriers to annuity adoption.
InvestmentNews column urges advisors to model real estate recapture before a property goes under contract
Americans 55 and older held roughly 61% of the nation's $48 trillion in real estate wealth as of late 2025, according to Redfin's analysis of Federal Reserve data.
HB Wealth adds Podnos physician team, entering Texas as its seventh market
Rachel Podnos O'Leary and Lauren Podnos-Garner will be based in Austin full time, while Steven Podnos splits his time between Texas and Florida.
University of Maryland survey finds bipartisan backing for wealth tax and higher capital gains taxes
A University of Maryland poll of more than 20,000 people in 11 competitive states and 28 House districts found 88% of Democrats and 72% of Republicans back a 2% annual tax on wealth over $50 million.
Partners Group splits €6.6bn evergreen fund into two portfolios after withdrawal cap
The Global Value SICAV restructuring follows a cap on redemptions earlier this year; the report does not say how assets or liquidity terms divide.
SEC private-market proposals draw compliance warnings from ACA Group and STP consultants
The package would cap performance fees at 20% of a fund's net gains, require findings by a board with an independent majority, and let interval funds offer monthly repurchases.
HB Wealth buys $700 million Austin RIA Wealth Care, its seventh market
The Atlanta fee-only firm closed Sept. 30 and adds a two-generation team serving physicians; terms were not disclosed.
Fidelity raises RIA custody minimum to $100 million, setting a mid-2027 deadline
Existing firms below the threshold must meet it or begin moving off the platform by June 30, 2027, the firm says.
A WealthManagement.com column argues advisory partnership drift starts when goals diverge
The column looks at ensemble teams whose partners want different next chapters and why the hardest conversation is the one that starts while nothing is broken.
CFP Board elects three directors after naming AI expertise a priority
The three-year terms begin Jan. 1, 2027, the same day Martin Seay becomes board chair.
Rockefeller recruits Piedmont Wealth Partners, a $1B Truist team in Charlotte
Two of the three managing directors built their careers inside bank-owned brokerages; Brett T. Schmidt's record begins at BB&T Securities in 2012.
Compliance experts press SEC on AI gaps after OpenAI agents probe government sites
An SEC spokesperson says no nonpublic data was released, while Frontline Compliance points to the backend extraction layer as the exposure to watch.
FPA rebuilds PlannerSearch to match consumers on mindset and life events
The previous directory, live since 2016, drew search traffic but connected almost no consumers, the association says.
Arax adds private capital markets services through KingsRock partnership
The two independent firms name no price or equity stake as KingsRock adds capital raising, structured financing and strategic advisory for Arax clients.
Nuveen closes Schroders deal without disclosing the price
The combined manager holds $2.6 trillion in assets, and the release claims top-ten positions in active equities, fixed income and private markets.
Advisors start retirement cash-flow work years before a business sale
Small business owners with a financial professional expect to retire at 63, seven years earlier than those without one, an Equitable and SCORE Association study finds.
Dell's family office helps take Baldwin Group private in a $7.7 billion deal
Michael Dell's family office joined the $7.7 billion take-private of The Baldwin Group, and Deloitte counts 8,030 single-family offices managing $3.1 trillion.
TIAA survey: twice as many respondents favor exercise and diet as financial planning
Thirty-two percent of respondents said their future-preparation energy leaned toward physical health, against 16% for financial planning, with 53% splitting evenly.