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Articles published 12/2012


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Jack Bogle was lending his experience and reputation to Advizent.

Jack Bogle steps aside as senior standards chairman at Advizent

The Vanguard legend reportedly had competing interests for his time

December 28, 2012 at 5:10 PM

Les Abromovitz: It will be of little consolation to clients to know that their advisors' nest eggs went down the drain along with their own.

SEC may tackle RIAs claiming to have 'skin in the game'

Heed the cautionary tale of the recent $1.6 million settlement against an RIA and its affiliated B-D that falsely claimed they co-invested in a fund

December 28, 2012 at 2:30 AM

Eric Clarke sees Salesforce approaching 'industry standard' status and nudges its rivals to get into the integration ballgame.

Orion hauls down nearly $2 billion of accounts from two Advent clients, clinching better than 50% growth for the year

Eric Clarke's firm is high on Salesforce and starting to look beyond its Omaha home for expansion as it needs more and more skilled labor

December 27, 2012 at 2:25 AM

Readers most 'liked' a May story that featured an enigmatically unpeopled office (think IPO cash) and some old fashioned gumshoe reportage.

RIABiz' 10 most-read stories of 2012: What fascinated you and why

Facebook, fallout from DOL's new 401(k) regs and happenings at Advizent, Addepar and Windhaven were reader catalysts

December 26, 2012 at 4:44 PM

Rob Isbitts: Your capital gains and dividend tax rate may be a lot less than 40%

Fiscal Cliff vs. Jimmy Cliff: How the leap may look more like Y2K or the Mayan calendar

We are sitting in sitting in limbo with many rivers to cross but harder they come (up), the harder they may not yet fall

December 26, 2012 at 3:40 PM

This American flag showed its colors on Portland Harbor as a nor'easter raged

Merry Christmas: A nor'easter makes life interesting as RIABiz heads up to Maine

No snow or skating ice but I put a stop to L.L. Bean mailings and a dog comes to life for Christmas

December 24, 2012 at 8:49 PM

Stuart DePina: If business hadn't exploded in the past six months, we would have taken on all comers [in-house].

Tamarac picks second Microsoft partner to handle spike in demand from big RIAs

Stuart DePina wants Salentica's sheer personpower to avoid getting flooded by his own pipeline

December 21, 2012 at 4:06 PM

Jack Waymire: It is hard for me to believe a CPA/PFS with 10 years' planning experience is any less qualified compared with a CFP with the same amount of experience.

Opinion: Why NAPFA's CFP-only approach is a slap in the face of many financial advisors

In the alphabet soup of designations for advisors are many legitimate practitioners whom the association's new policy will shut out

December 21, 2012 at 3:41 AM

Peter Carnathan: For me, the movement in the direction of a boutique size firm is a very good fit, and it makes very good sense.

How a $2.7 billion LA-based RIA known for its referral-by-referral growth jumped on a chance to grab a Virginia Trust officer

Can an alum of mammoth Fiduciary Trust Company International with a book of business focused on young lawyers find happiness in a big mom and pop?

December 20, 2012 at 5:44 AM

Andrew Rogers: It's very hard to launch a large-cap-growth fund. That's not going to go anywhere when you're competing against Vanguard.

Gemini adds a whopping $5 billion in AUM in 2012 by helping RIAs start and expand mutual funds

The firm has minted 50 new funds this year alone, and they are proving catnip to advisors who want to limit volatility for their clients

December 19, 2012 at 4:16 AM

Jeff Spears: JMP's financial stake in Sanctuary played no part in the appointment of Johnson to the chairman post.

$2.5 billion roll-up-like entity in San Francisco brings aboard a chairman from its big investor

Montgomery Securities veteran Craig Johnson will help corral runaway wirehouse advisor dollars as the San Francisco firm seeks to build on an exponential leap in assets this year

December 18, 2012 at 4:26 AM

Elliot Weissbluth: Because we didn't need the money, we passed.

HighTower passes up $40 million capital raise, takes a big breather from deals and implements a pacing regimen

The Chicago-based gazelle may chase capital markets next year, but expect deals to resume in early 2013

December 17, 2012 at 4:39 PM

Shirl Penney: We're keeping the numbers small.

Dynasty Financial turns two, picks a new long-term goal and shows off $2 billion of SMA assets

The New York corner-office outsourcer guys leave plenty of room to grow but will never have Smith Barney numbers

December 17, 2012 at 3:55 PM

Victor Fetter will be the face of LPL's technological skunkworks in North Carolina

LPL poaches top Dell exec to rewire outsourcing and head hundreds in new technology 'town'

Victor Fetter is reporting directly to Mark Casady and will help hire 60 techies in the next 45 days

December 14, 2012 at 5:57 AM

Young bull in training: I simply can't stand to see Merrill's training program so naively misrepresented.

A Merrill Lynch trainee shares what it's really like to be part of the firm's revamped, more RIA-like training program

Following a scathing condemnation of the program in reaction to a recent story, another trainee chimes in with a more three-dimensional report

December 13, 2012 at 8:15 PM

Rob Major: It's a real simple thing. It comes down to price.

Half-financed by RIAs, AssetBook rolls out 'Radar' to put big RIAs in its range

The previously down-market software firm says it can do anything Black Diamond can -- at 50% of the price

December 13, 2012 at 4:58 AM

Abby Salameh: I believed that advisors should ... give up their licenses if they wanted to be true to the cause.

What swayed me to the hybrid cause after an early indoctrination as a 'pure RIA' disciple

The notion that it's just a layover on the way to to a more exalted state of securities-license-dumping, fee-only purity should be reexamined

December 13, 2012 at 4:29 AM

Greg Friedman: If I could have waved a wand, I would have had it two years ago.

Greg Friedman is set to finally bring Junxure to the cloud and beat back the Salesforce-ification of the industry

True, the ascension to cloud would have happened sooner in an ideal world, but the world has not passed Junxure by, the RIA and software entrepreneur says

December 12, 2012 at 6:19 PM

Mike Durbin is not shy about going and getting top sales talent from competitors large and small.

Power shift in Fidelity's RIA sales: Scott Dell'Orfano is out; Rich Policastro defects from Schwab

Bob Oros has his hands full as the Fidelity sales effort gains more of a Schwab presence and feel

December 12, 2012 at 4:30 PM

Schwab held IMPACT in Chicago this year but really the city was already very much on the RIA map.

The case for Chicago as an epicenter of the RIA world

The rise of registered investment advisors here means the city, once viewed as a very secondary financial center to New York and the Bay Area, is coming into its own in a big way

December 11, 2012 at 6:05 AM

Kristan N. Wojnar: The wife may not wait until her husband dies to switch advisors.

She’s the boss: Keeping assets means keeping the power of the family matriarch fully in focus

The woman who sits quietly and looks bored at meetings can arrange one of her own with the kids who will inherit the family fortune

December 11, 2012 at 5:51 AM

Kris McCabe is charged with helping to bring back Advisor Partners to its former asset stature.

Hire of former Fidelity and Wealthfront talent is latest move by Andrew Rudd to remake Advisor Partners

Kris McCabe has admired Andrew Rudd's company from afar and now he believes he can get its brand humming

December 10, 2012 at 4:41 PM

John Furey:  Ignoring changes to the market could be dangerous and outright irresponsible.

How RIAs are becoming as complacent as wirehouses -- and what it'll take to snap out of it

There is empirical evidence that challenges are increasing but also reasons to believe they can be met

December 10, 2012 at 4:18 AM

Brian Davis: This isn't meant to be a deep dive, but to answer those yes and no compliance questions RIAs have on a day-to-day basis.

Scottrade proclaims itself the 'compliance custodian,' partnering with RIA In a Box and staffing a hotline with ex-regulators

But the mega-custodians are having none of it, saying the initiative is good as far as it goes, but lacks the horsepower to tackle the big questions

December 7, 2012 at 5:01 AM

Patrick Burns: By opening the door for RIAs to have their arbitration cases held before a FINRA arbitration panel, it seems that FINRA has taken another step in its quest to become the SRO for RIAs.

Analysis: Beware of a FINRA bearing gifts for RIAs

The broker regulator takes another step towards ruling RIAs by making its arbitration process open to them

December 7, 2012 at 4:52 AM

Marty Bicknell: If the phone rings, we'll be opportunistic.

Marty Bicknell self-declares a slowdown after bringing on $700 million more of RIA assets to punctuate an epic streak of deals

The Mariner CEO's personal barnstorming led to more than tripling his firm's assets from $2 billion to $6.5 billion with Brinton Eaton as 2012's finishing touch

December 6, 2012 at 4:46 PM

Peter Giza: While making my rounds, I made my way over to FinFolio to take a test drive of Matt Abar’s latest creative works.

From Schwab IMPACT's dizzying array, one free agent tabbed FinFolio and its use of Windows 8 as a takeaway

Peter Giza was always the RedBlack guy until this year but now he's free to admire and comment on other vendors

December 6, 2012 at 7:32 AM

Kevin Keller: We are business-model- and compensation-neutral, but all CFP professionals are required to put client interests ahead of their own.

The once underrespected CFP gets a lift after Merrill Lynch and now NAPFA make it central for newbies

Still, CFP certificants shoot down the idea of making the CEO credits requirements even harder, and fiduciary concerns linger

December 5, 2012 at 7:29 AM

David Marcus: Investors have migrated out of European securities with no regard to the fundamental value of the underlying companies.

Column: Europe is the opportunity of a generation and the time to invest is now

Ignore the anti-hype: An undermined euro may be a gain for Yankee investors with a long view and sufficient backbone

December 5, 2012 at 7:27 AM

Rob Isbitts: What clients want today is someone who worries less than they do.

8 nuggets of angst mined from RIAs at Schwab IMPACT

Safe zones of consensus thinking inhabit almost no area of advisor life

December 4, 2012 at 5:08 PM

Yaqub Ahmed: A lot of the final decision came down to actual conversations that happened between the advisor and plan sponsor.

What post-mortems of 401(k) and 403(b) deals that got away tell advisors how plan sponsors think – and it’s not mainly about price

A Franklin Templeton study extruded the hard truth from ax-wielders that would rather just say 'no thanks' as they administer the cut

December 4, 2012 at 5:41 AM

Rob Mooney: This is not about Merrill Lynch.

A mini-Merrill springs up with its own broker-dealer and plans to grow

Two former Merrill higher-ups brought aboard two teams of Merrill brokers -- and they're just getting started

December 3, 2012 at 6:56 AM

Robert Moore skipped the sugarcoating: 'It takes an advisor a year or two to ramp from zero to their prior production levels

What five things LPL president Robert Moore told investors that stood out for me

Wall Street reacted well to the hype-free message about germinating recruits and serious cost-cutting plans

December 3, 2012 at 6:48 AM

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